The dice have been cast: in October 2023, the international community will decide the fate of a sovereign country, on the pretext of restoring security, while the people claim their right to self-determination as enshrined in the United Nations Charter. An important part of this people has worked, assuming its political sovereignty, on the construction of an alternative presented in the Montana Accords ( http://www.akomontana.ht ) which contain a set of measures proposing a democratic transition. This was done with a view to assuming civic responsibility and contributing to a solution to the crisis.
Despite their determination to make their voice heard in a constructive way, the CORE group, represented essentially by a union of ambassadors – something which does not exist in any other country, perhaps in Palestine in the post-Camp David period -, had no other proposal than to support a Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, who was not legitimate because he had been chosen by this same Core group, and to make possible the intervention of a foreign force. The aim of this Core Group is to reduce the country’s autonomy by stifling all alternative and critical voices, and to return the Haitian people to the status of a people dependent on the master, the United States. Many states should be worried: who will be the next to lose its political sovereignty?
Those who argue that it is important to restore « democratic order » in Haiti, including Antony J Blinken, would do well to remember the arguments used to justify foreign military operations that have led countries into chaos without resolving any of the reasons why certain countries were away with their index finger on the « missile » button. Their order and law are those employed by the financial mafia, whose fortunes are built on illegal trading, money laundering and corruption.
Will Haiti become, through decisions taken from outside, what Cuba was before Castro’s arrival? A large-scale leisure center, where everything is possible for the pleasure of the North Americans and their allies, but first Uncle Sam will have emptied this educated, prolific and curious country of all its intellectuals by offering them emigration facilities denied to many migrants. Once again, this brings back strange memories: you can choose your migrant from a catalog! We buy useful brains.
This revives some very strange historical moments, such as when France obliged Boyer to pay an illegal and illegitimate debt, or when the United States left the country by plundering the Haitian gold contained in the country’s bank safes, or when numerous Haitian presidents held on to power through the use of gangs that today control over 80% of the city of Port-au-Prince… The international community has a fluctuating perception of its obligations towards the « People of the Nations ». This « People » no longer exists; all that’s left is the financial market and « law and order » to guarantee the prosperity of a few. Haiti’s gold raises envy and jealousy, who can claim it for themselves?
So, from violation of international law to violation of the right to life, sending an intervention force -Multinational Security Support, MSS- completes the destructuring and delegitimization of international law and international humanitarian law. Let’s not forget that this began with Palestine, and was reinforced by illegitimate military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, led by the imperial United States and supported by a number of countries, including France.
This decision, presented as « historic » by the UN media center, is on the contrary dangerous for peoples and states reduced to being the plaything of financial decision-makers or war-makers. What’s more, asking Kenya to take command of this force is absolutely cynical. Do the Core Group really think that the gangs, armed by certain Western powers, are going to give up the manna represented by drug imports and trafficking from which these same Western countries benefit?
The young of gangs have nothing to lose; they’ve never had anything. Today, they’re feared, adored by some, envied by others, even if they arouse a very legitimate terror. Fatalists, they know that their lives depend on a single bullet.
The result is clear: it’s the blacks who are going to secure the country. Once again, this refers to the time when the enslaved owner delegated the day-to-day management of the Bossales to the Creoles, born of the act of rape, which could be done because they were of mixed race. It’s clear here that the UN is playing a deleterious, cynical and cruel game; it is itself producing institutional racism and washing its hands of what it is producing.
Haiti needs neither tears, nor self-pitying words, nor a Core Group, but to be left in charge of its own future, by forcing France to repay the debt illegally demanded, the repatriation of the gold stolen by the USA, and the cancellation of the public debt. These countries have enriched themselves through crime and theft; it’s up to them to restore Haiti as a State and a nation. The UN should demand that the process of political reparations be an essential item on its agenda, rather than going to war against the people. One day, they may well wake up and call to account this international community, which is just as failed as Ariel Henry’s government.
Haiti needs the establishment of an unwavering solidarity, needs « to break with this type of apartheid that does not speak its name, which wants several Haitians to live side by side without meeting each other ». Haiti must no longer be the convulsionary country described by Aimé Césaire, but « the Haiti of Love, of Solidarity with other peoples, of generosity, of emotion ».
With this decided interference, « the prospect of a country of laughter, of dance, of strength drawn from derision, is receding ». Are we going to let this country fall prey to predators? We must all stand by the Haitian people, so that they can raise their heads and not find themselves on their knees again and again. International solidarity must oblige us to reconquer with the Haitian people their dignity, stolen by the racist liberal capitalist system. We must share our strength of resistance, we must fight for the acceptance of the alternative plan, the only one capable of enabling them to regain their political sovereignty and self-determination. We must echo the struggle of these men and women, braving the indignity and cowardice of the international community.
Since the international community has decided, by a throw of the dice, on the fratricidal future of the Haitian people, it must remember that « no throw of the dice can abolish hazard » (Poem; 1914; Stéphane Mallarmé).
Let’s not just be shocked, let’s stand up, let’s resist with the Haitians to the occupation and submission that are coming.
By standing by the side of the sovereign Haitian people, we save the dignity they offered us by freeing themselves from slavery and establishing the first Black Republic.