Haiti: A Movement of Solidarity to End the UN’s Illegal Occupation

Written on September 19th, 2014 in politics Comments Off

Published on Global Research.ca, by Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya, Sept 17, 2014.

… We are no longer living in the 19th century with the spectre of Haiti’s successful struggle for its freedom haunting the consciousness of slave masters across the Americas. Yet the military occupation of this country since 2004 by way of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is sending a clear message that the Haitians’ tentative step toward exercising control over the destiny in the 1990s and the early years of the new century is still “a source of alarm and terror” to imperial overlords such a Canada, France, and the United States.

The MINUSTAH occupation army has a combined force of 7, 408 soldiers and police personnel as of July 31, 2014. This armed entity has served as the muscle behind the schemes of the local elite and foreign interests in preventing the disenfranchised urban and rural labouring classes from seeking to capture the levers of national political, economic, and social power.

A number of observers have documented the oppressive actions of MINUSTAH in its ten-year occupation of Haiti: involvement in the sexual exploitation and abuse of girls and women;repression of Jean-Bertrand Aristides’ supporters; the general abuses of living under occupation; introduction of cholera that has killed over 8,500 Haitians and infected more than 700,000 people; the suspicious death of a teenager; and the compelling reasons for an end to the occupation.

It is high time for progressive people and organizations in Canada, Europe and the United States to demonstrate their anti-imperialist commitment to Haiti by creating campaigns and a movement to organize and mobilize mass opinion against the military occupation. The current mandate of MINUSTAH ends on October 15, 2014, and it is up for renewal at the anti-democratic UN’s Security Council. Therefore, we need to be nimble and swift in putting together initiatives demanding an immediate withdrawal of the UN’s army of occupation.

Further, individuals and groups of good conscience need to develop people-to-people relations with Haitian grassroots organizations in their struggle to control their destiny and fight local and global forces of capitalism and imperialism. There are a number of initiatives that may be pursued in exercising solidarity with the labouring classes in Haiti.

Haiti is a symbol of the Revolutionary Afrikan Tradition that is committed to an assertive anti-imperialist politics. The present occupation of this country by MINUSTAH/United Nations is an attempt to prevent the Haitians from building on their history of militant self-determination. We are morally and politically obligated to build campaigns across the Americas and the rest of the world to demand an end to the occupation of Haiti.

The labouring classes in Haiti have furnished the world with one of the most compelling and dramatic moments in revolution-making in the annals of history. They are the first and only people to have successfully overthrown a system of enslavement through armed struggle.

They defeated the armies of France, Britain, and Spain, which were among the strongest military powers during that period. Haiti lit the fire of freedom in the hearts and minds of enslaved Afrikans and colonized peoples across the Americas. The people of Haiti weren’t comfortable in just being role models for people who sought their emancipation by all available means.

They gave guns, ammunition, ships, and personnel to Simon Bolivar and his fledgling, resource-challenged campaign to liberate Latin America from Spanish colonialism. The Haitians in their humanistic and solidaristic commitment to Afrikan liberation extracted a promise from Bolivar to end the enslavement of Afrikans in all liberated territories under his control or influence. The peoples of the Americas have a special responsibility to be there for the people of Haiti in their resistance to MINUSTAH.

Ending the military occupation of Haiti is a popular demand of the labouring classes in Haiti as evidenced through numerous demonstrations. Further, a survey of Haitians in August 2012 by students from Columbia University found that 65 per cent of respondents wanted an end to the occupation. Recent polls on Haitians’ attitude toward MINUSTAH revealed that 89 per cent of them have called for the withdrawal of the UN’s occupation force … //

… (full text).

(Ajamu Nangwaya, Ph.D., is an educator and a writer. He is a member of the Organization for Afrikan Struggles and International Solidarity and the Toronto Haiti Action Committee. Find him on
his blog on Black Agenda Report, Also on Google Web-search, and on YouTube-search).

Related Links:

Websites, Projects:

on en.wikipedia:

  • Haiti … officially the Republic of Haiti (République d’Haïti; Repiblik Ayiti[6]), is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic …;
  • Timeline of relief efforts after the 2010 Haiti earthquake;

Other Links:

UPDATE: Scottish independence referendum: Scotland votes no – LIVE, on The Guardian’s Scottish Independence Blog, with Andrew Sparrow, Claire Phipps and Paul Owen in Edinburgh, September 19, 2014;
(related concerns: A Public Bank Option for Scotland, on Dissident Voice, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, Sept 17, 2014; - HUMANITY vs INSANITY – #23: Scotland & a New Political Paradigm, 44.55 min, uploaded by Ian R Crane, Sept 16, 2014; - Scottish referendum explained for non-Brits – video, 4.54 min, Sept 17, 2014);

*****

Capitalism IS the Crisis, on Humanitarian Texts, Sept 19, 2014;

Islamic State in Court: Germany Struggles to Deal with Returning Fighters, on Spiegel Online International, by Jörg Diehl, Hubert Gude, Jörg Schindler, Fidelius Schmid and Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt, Sept 17, 2014 (Photo Gallery): Hundreds of radical Islamists from Germany have headed to Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State. Many have since returned home. Now the country’s court system is gearing up for the coming legal battles – and facing myriad challenges …;

Video: 9/11 – Anatomy of a Great Deception, 91.59 min, on Global Research.ca, by David Hooper, Sept 17, 2014;
also on YouTube, uploaded by dts51sound, Sept 12, 2014;

An Unbearable and Choking Hell: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11, on Clearing House, by John W. Whitehead (attorney and author), Sept 17, 2014 (Copyright © 2014 The Rutherford Institute);

Progressive Democrats Follow Obama to War in Syria, on Worker’s Action, by Shamus Cooke, Sept 14, 2014: … a bi-partisan consensus exists for an expanded war in Iraq and Syria …;

Senator Bernie Sanders on Dealing with ISIS, 6.03 min, uploaded by thomhartmann, Sept 11, 2014;

… and this:

Sinéad O’Connor:

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