Days before the announcement of Canada’s sending of warships, various Haitian organizations demanded that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), regarding the conference that brought together regional heads of government in Nassau, Bahamas, reject a military intervention. in the Caribbean country. Said conference was marked by the presence of the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, as a special guest and that of Ariel Henry, the hated de facto Prime Minister imposed on the Haitian people by the Core Group.
Let us remember that after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, Ariel Henry was chosen as Prime Minister by the so-called Core Group or contact group, which is led by the United States and also includes France, Spain, Brazil, Germany and Canada. . This “designation”, which did not respect any succession instance and did not have the support of the population, was signed by the United Nations and the OAS. In other words, an open subjugation of the sovereignty of the Haitian people.
In the open letter to the governments present in CARICOM, the Haitian organizations demand that the region “stop being the sounding board of the former slave-owning colonial powers, now converted into imperialist powers.” And they denounce that the intervention challenges the right of the Haitian people to self-determination and contributes to keeping Prime Minister Ariel Henry in power, in addition, that the occupation will allow the reinforcement of the tutelage imposed with a view to achieving systematic political control of Haiti to consolidate better foreign interference and guarantee the looting of their wealth.
It was at the CARICOM summit that the Canadian Prime Minister announced the sending of military ships. In the official position, Trudeau said that “At this moment Haiti faces incessant gang violence, political turmoil and corruption (…) Now is the time to unite to confront the severity of the situation.” In his Twitter account, he detailed his position a little more. There he wrote: “My message to @DrArielHenry today was clear. Canada is committed to supporting the people of Haiti. We will continue there to provide assistance, impose sanctions, and work together to address the political, security, and humanitarian crisis facing the Haitian people.”
This position of Trudeau is in line with the position of the de facto president, Ariel Henry, who last October had called for a complete imperialist military intervention in Haiti, at the hands of the United States or Canada. The goal of this request was to stop the enormous discontent over an illegitimate government imposed on the Haitian people by foreign powers. Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State of the United States, acknowledged at the time that he was organizing the intervention.
This position of Trudeau is also in line with the position of the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) that met at the end of January in Argentina, chaired by President Alberto Fernández, in which the hated president of facto Ariel Henry and instigator of imperialist intervention officially participated. In January, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, stated that it was “urgent” to deploy an international security force in Haiti to “help combat gangs and contribute to democratic governance”, along the same lines of argument to justify military intervention.
At the CARICOM summit itself, where the hated Ariel Henry was treated as an official president, as had already happened in CELAC, the de facto ruler returned to Haiti, with all the official recognitions, and with his triumph after the announcement of Canada Shipping Warships. But having set foot in the Haitian airport, a large mobilization of repudiation of the people “received” the de facto president, who, protected exclusively by his security, withdrew to his house.
The International Solidarity Conference and the call to stop the imperialist military intervention in Haiti
Most of the Haitian signatory organizations that in their letter to CARICOM demanded that the countries of the region not be pawns of the imperialist policy of military intervention, together with other social movements from other parts of the world, came from holding a virtual conference International in solidarity with Haiti on February 8, convened by the KONBIT (Coumbite of Political, Union and Popular Organizations), PAPDA (Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif) and the FPP (Front Patriotique Populaire), and included the presence of Nora Cortiñas and Pérez Esquivel from Argentina and more international references from other countries. From La Izquierda Diario we were present at said international solidarity conference.
“The conference is a joint effort, which seeks to contribute to dismantle the mechanisms used by the imperialist countries and the hegemonic media that seek to criminalize and misrepresent the popular struggle in Haiti, and in this way, justify a new imperialist intervention, as has occurred 13 times since 1993”, declared in the call.
Referents of the imperialist anti-intervention movements in Haiti, already denounced at the International Solidarity Conference the alleged “justificatory” arguments of the Canadian Prime Minister for sending warships, as a situation that has been fictitiously created by the Haitian de facto government and by US imperialism and other countries of the Corel Group.
Josué Mérilien, trade unionist and philosophy professor (UNNOH and member of KONBIT), was emphatic in this way, when pointing out that the crisis of violence that Haiti is experiencing today is a crisis fabricated by the imperialist colonial powers and by Haiti’s dominant politicians, who are who in the first place created the armed gangster gangs, who really exercise the power of life and death over the Haitian people and are the ones who kidnap, torture and kill.
“The destabilizing powers have installed in the national space groups of mercenaries, loyal political workers in ordered service. Obviously, these armed and federated gangs are used as political instruments of chaos. They have the power of life or death over the kidnapped population”, he denounced during the Conference. “In this perspective, they are creating a situation of chaos in an attempt to justify and legitimize their criminal project of military occupation in order to achieve much more systematic political control and the total looting of our wealth,” he emphasized.
At the Solidarity Conference it was denounced that “The Core Group is this strange and unique union of diplomats effectively run by the US government. In record time, the Core Group managed to destroy almost all the country’s institutions (Justice, etc.), atomize them and thus create a chaotic situation of anarchy in Haiti where the Haitian people no longer live, but rather survive.” In this sense, Josué Mérilien was emphatic in maintaining that “This untenable situation of total anarchy continues, and is currently reinforced and accelerated by the imperialist powers and their local allies with the main objective of preparing public opinion for the unconditional acceptance of the calculated military occupation”. In other words, Haiti is experiencing a silent genocide.
Mérilien called for a campaign of international solidarity with the Haitian people to stop the invasion, called for the creation of political bodies of the Haitian people and launched a call for the restoration of the sovereignty of the Haitian people, destroyed by Haitian politicians like Henry, principal intervention policy agitator. He also called for launching a campaign for the elimination of the foreign debt and for reparation for the centuries of looting that the Haitian people have suffered at the hands of imperialist states such as the United States and France.
For his part, Ilionor Louis, a professor at the Université d’État d’Haïti, another of the Haitian panelists, pointed out in denunciation of the “infantilization” with which imperialism treats the Haitian people, putting it as a people without history that must be under the tutelage of another imperialist country. Louis pointed out that this is a discursive method of capitalism to subjugate other peoples, since from a global perspective this type of discourse has been used against peoples not only in America but also in Africa and Asia. He finally launched a call to the workers of all countries to unite to stop the invasion of Haiti and fight against capitalism in the world.
This Ariel Henry is the one that everyone, from Biden and Trudeau, to Alberto Fernández and Lula, treats as the authentic political representative of the Haitian people. On the other hand, the last intervention of the UN for the “Stabilization of Haiti” (MINUSTAH) that lasted 13 years, between 2004 and 2017, and in which various countries of Latin America ( including Lula’s Brazil, the Kirchners’ Argentina and Evo Morales’ Bolivia), participated in or led, together with troops from other countries, a military occupation at the request of the United States, degrading the sovereignty of the Haitian people, and being accused of all kinds of of aberrations, abuses and murders.
The massive mobilizations and strikes in recent years against the Henry government show that even if imperialism and regional governments opt for a new military intervention, it will be widely rejected by the Haitian people and the oppressed peoples of the world.
The largest campaign of international solidarity with the Haitian people is urgently needed to begin, as the recent Solidarity Conference resolved, with mobilizations in all countries to express support and emphatically demand against any type of imperialist military intervention.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
