Through intimidation and what in all but name was kidnapping, Washington and Ottawa unceremoniously expelled Ariel Henry – the man they imposed on the Haitian people as Prime Minister and whom they continued to faithfully support for nearly three years as he imposed brutal IMF measures and refused to call presidential or parliamentary elections.
In what was the culmination of a week of imperial intrigue, Henry announced his impending departure in a video broadcast late Monday night from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where he is currently stranded.
On Tuesday, March 5, Henry attempted to return to Haiti via the Dominican Republic after a diplomatic mission to Kenya, where he signed a bilateral agreement authorizing imperialist-backed military and security intervention in the Caribbean island nation, run by Kenya. police.
But the Dominican Republic, no doubt acting on orders from Washington, refused to allow Henry’s plane to land. When he was diverted to Puerto Rico, the Haitian prime minister was confronted with a message from the US State Department, broadcast over the air, demanding his resignation. Upon arrival in San Juan, Henry was greeted by U.S. Secret Service agents and prevented for hours from leaving the plane.
Over the next few days, representatives of the United States, Canada and France – the imperialist powers that lead the so-called Central Group of Nations over Haiti – made it clear that they now viewed Henry as a liability who should be removed from office. .
Things came to a head at a meeting Monday in Kingston, Jamaica, convened by leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), with the physical participation of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, as well as various political leaders Haitians, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin. Trudeau online. Henry, whom the United States, Canada and France had installed in power in July 2021 after the bloody assassination of his predecessor, Jovenil Moïse, was clearly excluded from the debates. The discussions, which continued for about eight hours, resulted in an agreement on the creation of a “broad-based” presidential “transitional council”, composed of seven people, including representatives of the political and economic elite corruption of Haiti, the Roman Catholic Church and “civil society”.
The aim of this mechanism, the composition of which has given rise to bitter disputes, is to provide a fig leaf of “popular” support for the latest military and security intervention supported by imperialism by the poorest country in the world. Western hemisphere.
When Henry apparently objected to his sudden resignation, Trudeau berated him one last time over the phone. Shortly afterwards, Henry released his video statement announcing, as requested, that he was resigning as Prime Minister once the “transition council” was established.
After the meeting, Blinken declared with unprecedented cynicism: “Only the Haitian people can, only the Haitian people must decide their own future. Nor anyone else.
The rapid removal of Henry as head of government of Haiti proves, on the contrary, once again that Washington views Haiti’s political leaders, elected or not, as agents of impeachment at their convenience, treating the poor Haitian people with criminal indifference and hostility.
This is imperialism showing its true colors. The “rules-based order” continually invoked by Washington, Canada and their European allies consists of the “rules” that they dictate and choose to respect or break as they see fit.
Although on a significantly smaller scale, the lawlessness of Henry’s impeachment, on full display, mirrors the sheer criminality of Washington’s continued support for Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the he reckless escalation of the war with Russia without taking into account the danger of a nuclear storm. As World Socialist Website explained at the beginning of the year: “All the ‘red lines’ which separate civilization from barbarism are erased. The motto of capitalist governments is: ‘Nothing that is criminal is foreign to us.’
Haiti has suffered for more than a century from repeated imperialist occupations, regime change operations and outright looting. U.S. Marines were deployed to the country from 1915 to 1934 to provide “stability.” They did this by ensuring that Haiti’s debts to American banks were repaid and by brutally suppressing a widespread peasant revolt.
The national army formed during the American occupation served as a central base of support for the Duvalier dictatorship which terrorized the population with a regime of repression and torture for three decades, from the late 1950s until the overthrow of “Baby Doc” Duvalier. of a popular uprising in 1986. Washington was a strong supporter of the dictatorship, which during the Cold War was considered an important ally in the Caribbean, like the Somoza family in Nicaragua. After Duvalier’s overthrow, the United States attempted to maintain the dictatorship amid an insurgent movement among Haitian workers and the rural poor.
American and Canadian troops occupied Haiti for several years starting in 1994, and intervened again in 2004 to overthrow the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. To oust Aristide, Washington and Ottawa collaborated with far-right gangs with close ties to the former Duvalier regime and its fascist security police, the Tontons Macoutes. After Haiti was hit by a terrible earthquake in 2010, which destroyed the capital and left more than a quarter of a million dead, the imperialists again deployed troops to the island nation. Behind promises of “humanitarian aid,” they continued to push for “neoliberal” economic restructuring to get the most out of the Haitian people. In 2015-2016, the Obama administration and Ottawa intervened, under Trudeau’s newly elected Liberal government in Canada, to manipulate the electoral process to ensure that Moïse, the chosen successor to Michel Martelly, a far-right figure with close ties with the old Duvalierist wing of the bourgeoisie, came out on top.
It is this imperialist enslavement and plunder, orchestrated by all factions of the corrupt and cowardly Haitian bourgeoisie, that has created the social disaster that is currently engulfing Haiti. More than half of the country’s 11 million people depend on food aid. Health and other basic social services are non-existent. With more than 80 percent of Port-au-Prince under the control of heavily armed gangs, business and commerce are almost at a standstill.
Biden, Blinken, Trudeau and their advisors are not organizing a new occupation of Haiti by foreign security forces because they are moved by such scenes of human misery. They have proven over the past six months that they are more than willing to provide weapons and political cover for Israel’s indiscriminate massacre of defenseless men, women and children.
If they are eager to restore civil “public order” in Haiti, it is because they fear that the worsening humanitarian crisis in a country located only 1,100 kilometers from Miami will lead to an influx of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of refugees. in the two imperialist powers of North America, and this during an American election year. They also fear that the crisis in Haiti will destabilize the Caribbean region. Dominican Republic military forces are working with militias to expel Haitians seeking refuge on the Dominican side of the island of Hispaniola.
Another concern is the loss of global “prestige” of the United States caused by the collapse of a Caribbean country, which Washington and Ottawa have long considered their “backyard” and brutally exploited for more than a century.
Biden and Trudeau entrust Kenya and several other African and CARICOM countries with the task of introducing “order” in a country characterized by the greatest social inequalities, instead of directly deploying American and Canadian troops to repress the Haitian masses. It is not just because they are preoccupied with their war against Russia and their preparations for war against Iran and China. They know that there is a seething hatred among the Haitian people for American and Canadian imperialism that could turn any direct intervention into a bloody failure.
However, this opposition must be led by the working class in opposition to all factions of the Haitian ruling class and its representatives of big capital and petty-bourgeois politics.
The pseudo-left in North America as well as the Black Caucus of the Democratic Party in Congress continue to promote Aristide and the forces around his Fanmi Lavalas Party as a progressive opposition to imperialism and the most predatory sections of the Haitian bourgeoisie. Aristide, who gained widespread support by giving fiery speeches denouncing inequality and political oppression while still a priest, was in fact the instrument used by imperialism to stifle the mass movement that overthrew the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986 and which continued against the military. coups like that of 1991 toppled his first government, just seven months after he won the presidential election.
However, once expelled from office, Aristide did not call on the Haitian masses to resist, nor the international working class. Instead, it has led the Haitian masses, including those living in the diaspora, to call for the intervention of the imperialist powers, that is, those who are primarily responsible for the repression of democratic aspirations and social issues of the Haitian people.
After years of Aristide kowtowing to Washington and agreeing to implement IMF austerity measures and limit his presidency to the remaining year and a half of his five-year term, US President Bill Clinton ordered the Marines to restore him to power in Port-au-Prince. .
His second administration (2001-2003) was even more pathetic, where his government was a slap in the face to the IMF. When he was kidnapped by the US military and expelled from the country, there was little or no reaction in the Slums that were once bastions of his electoral support.
Representatives of his Famni Lavalas Party worked Tuesday once again with Washington and Ottawa to concoct a new pro-imperialist right-wing government.
No part of the Haitian bourgeoisie is capable of leading a real struggle to guarantee the democratic and social interests of the suffering Haitian masses. Haiti’s misery can only end if the working class throughout the region adopts the program of permanent revolution in alliance with its class brothers and sisters in the imperialist centers.
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