Haiti: The struggle against a new foreign invasion

We publish a translation of a report by Jackson Jean from Haiti, where a social crisis is fueling a clamor from the Haitian elite and from the “international community” for another invasion of the country. This report recounts how an alliance of Haitian opposition groups is opposing foreign intervention and calling for a solution that only the Haitian people can impose. This text was originally published in El Grito delSur, and republished in Correspondenciade Prensa. The ISP translated it to English.

A tweet from the United Nations informed the Haitian people that Ariel Henry, accused of being an accomplice in the 2021assassination of President Jovenel Moise, will lead the country as de facto Prime Minister. For more than a year, he has been in power, ruling by decree and for an indeterminate period of time. All of this in a country that has no Supreme Court or parliament because their terms ran out. However, armed gangs continue taking over an increasing number of strategic zones while terrorizing the people.

All of the areas that they have grabbed are said to have oil reserves or other mineral wealth. Inflation, on the other hand, continues to cut into people’s purchasing power. The great majority of the population depends on relatives abroad and on peddling goods or services.

With this situation as a backdrop, the Haitian people have been occupying the streets for almost a month. They are denouncing the complicity of the government with the private sector, the armed gangs and the so-called “international community”. They accuse the governing elite of “voluntarily provoking all this chaos” to keep themselves in power, and to defend the interests of the oligarchy and of the powerful.

The great opposition bloc

After the assassination occurred on August 30, 2021, several Haitian popular organizations signed the Montana Agreement to “break with the extreme right-wing regime (PHTK)” and to overcome the constitutional crisis through a new provisional bicameral government. Starting from this point, the signers of the agreement entered into opposition to the de facto government of Ariel Henry.

“This social debt is crystalized in the absence of basic services for the entire Haitian population, without distinction. It is reinforced by exclusion, misery, and social hatred of the majority of the population,” said Fritz Alphonse Jean, the president-designate of the Transition.

On the other side, the Political Platform “PititDesalin” (PPPD), despite some differences with the leaders of the Montana Agreement, also demands the departure of Ariel Henry’s government because of its inability to solve the problems of inflation, insecurity and organizing elections.

“The Haitian people can no longer bear this misery and suffering. This government has not made any improvement in the face of this situation. As a result, Ariel Henry and his team must go and make way for other leaders,” said Moise Jean Charles, Leader of PPPD.

In response, the government has criminalized and repressed popular leaders and political activists, who have, for almost a month, been conducting a popular operation known as “Peyi Lok” (Closed Country) and “Bwa Kale” (Civil Disobedience). They also denounced the government’s silence in the face of the popular sector’s demands.

These protests spread throughout the country when the government decided to increase the price of gas. Yet, it can’t even distribute it at its doubled price because federated armed gangs called “G9”control the areas where the “Varreux”fuel terminal is located. This is causing a shortage of oil throughout the country, which also affects the supply of water, food, transportation, and electricity.

Haiti’s “friends”

By decree, the Prime Minister issued “a request [to] obtain from Haiti’s international friends effective support through the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity to stop, throughout the territory, the humanitarian crisis caused, among other things, by the insecurity resulting from the criminal actions of armed gangs and their sponsors.”

This order has the support from the United Nations Integrating Office (BINUH) and the Core Group (the embassies of Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the U.S., France, the European Union, and the Organization of American States).

But the popular organizations APDA, l’UNNOH, le MOLEGHAF, Konbit, Fanm Vanyan, la CNOHA and KASIL said that “the current representative of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) is the instigator of a federation of armed gangs terrorizing the country, where kidnapping has become a daily occurrence and reflects another sign of the failure of UN missions . . . the trend observed among the representatives of three permanent member states of the Council (France, United States of America, United Kingdom) is the enthusiasm to renew a new illegal and unconstitutional UN mission in Haiti with a view supposedly to stabilize the country dominated by gangs but federated by them, to feed and reinforce insecurity to the point of chaos”.

Haiti Against Militarization and Interventionism

Thousands of Haitians are also taking to the streets against a new UN military presence or troops from particular countries because they know the country has already experienced more than 10 UN missions. And the most recent one has only damaged the country socially, politically, and from a humanitarian perspective. The UN knows it has failed, but there has never been any reparation.

It is worth mentioning that contingents of the UN forces have abused their authority, destroying private property and committing robberies, contributing to the infection of more than 300,000 people with the cholera outbreak. Sexual abuse of women, and their abandonment with children, has been common.

In addition, they have also participated in the electoral frauds that facilitated the establishment of the new extreme right-wing PHTK regime. And they have conducted money laundering under the banner of NGO humanitarian assistance and international organizations, set up in Haiti after the devastating 2010 and 2021 earthquakes.

In these demonstrations against international interference and rejection of foreign intervention at the behest of U.S. Ambassador Pamela Ann White and UN Secretary Antonio Guterres, police use tear gas and fire lead bullets. According to local media reports, at least one protester was killed in the crackdown and several injured in the first week of October.

On October 9, Henry wrote to the UN Secretary General asking the UN to intervene militarily in the country. In opposition, independent popular leaders and members of the Montana Accord announced general mobilizations throughout the country. The Pitit Desalin platform also announced that it will demonstrate in front of the US embassy, since the United States “is the country leading the invasion in Haiti”. This mega-demonstration was set for October 17,the anniversary of the day that the liberator of Haiti, Jean Jacques Dessalines, was assassinated. This caused the United Nations Security Council to change the date of its resolution on this issue, which was for this same date. It was moved to October 21.

In short, beyond the differences, all the popular political actors united their forces behind three demands: Ariel Henry must leave power due to his unconstitutionality,illegitimacy,and incompetence; No to the intervention/interference of international organizations or foreign countries; A solution by and for Haitians so that the country may return to the rule of law.