Missing Links on Cuba, Haiti and Colombia
Black Alliance for Peace
(July 26, 2021) —Nothing quite demonstrates the arrogance and white supremacy of the US empire like its relationship to Africans and other colonized people.
On Thursday, the Biden administration slapped new sanctions on Cuban government officials. We ask those who have raised racism in Cuba as a nuance worthy of interrogation: Why not question the white supremacy inherent in US policies that disproportionately impact African/Black peoples throughout the region?
The Cuban people have spoken and they have said, yes, they have internal contradictions, like any country born within the context of colonial conquest and genocide. But they also have said what would make the most difference to Cubans in Cuba is an end to the cruel medieval-style blockade that has prevented vital food, medicine and other items needed to help the Cuban people.
We say when a people are at war with an oppressor, it is our obligation inside the United States to stand with them against the empire without engaging in the ego-inflating exercise of raising their internal contradictions at those critical moments. Either you support national liberation and self-determination or you don’t.
Liberals give cover to the US empire’s machinations against Cuba. But these same people do not raise the hypocrisy of the imperialist media highlighting small Cuban protests over lack of food and necessities while ignoring protests numbering in the tens of thousands against a US-backed, neocolonial dictator in predominantly Black Haiti. In fact, it took the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse to get any media coverage.
Similarly, Africans are suffering in Colombia, as the right-wing state that allies with the United States guns down, brutalizes and disappears Afro-Colombians. The national strike that kicked off in April continues, but imperialist media coverage vanished after the initial media flurry that disappeared Afro-Colombians from the stories, which helped win the hearts of the white West.
No other US-based anti-war or anti-imperialist organization is able to raise in the same way as the Black Alliance for Peace the contradictions Africans within the belly of the US empire and within the African diaspora face. Even though it is uncomfortable for the state, and even for some on the so-called left, when we stand against imperialism in all its forms, we effectively agitate and organize for ourselves and for collective humanity.
Haiti’s White Rulers Have Spoken on Haiti’s Political Future
Haiti’s slain President Jovenel Moïse and first lady Martine Moïse.
Black Alliance for Peace
(July 25, 2021) — JULY 9, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns the arrogance and illegality of United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti Helen La Lime’s July 8 statement that Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph will be the new president, just one day after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
The decision was announced to the press after a closed-door UN Security Council meeting had been called on Haiti. But BAP asks: Who gave the United Nations special envoy the power to make that kind of determination for the people of Haiti?
This sounds like a play right out of the old regime-change book. As BAP stated in its July 7 press release, BAP smells a rat.
BAP is concerned the political situation the United States created by supporting a dictatorship in Haiti is quickly replicating the moment when the United States swept in to colonize the predominantly African/Black country after the 1915 assassination of Haiti’s president, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.
“The Black Alliance for Peace remains steadfast in our call against foreign intervention and occupation of Haiti,” says Jemima Pierre, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Coordinator. “We call on all anti-imperialist and Black internationalist forces to stand with the Haitian people and oppose US and European interventions deployed under the guise of the ‘Responsibility to Protect.’”
What Haiti needs is authentic national sovereignty and self-determination.
“When people say Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, they fail to understand it is the Pan-European colonial powers that have kept Haiti with its hands tied behind its back,” says BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. “We say time out on white Western powers causing destruction in the global South.”
Shortly after Democrats wrung their hands over the possibility of Donald Trump staying past his term in office, Biden came into office and immediately lent his support to Moïse to stay beyond the February 7 term limit. That decision sent thousands of Haitians protesting in the streets week after week.
“The Haitian people clearly understood that the United States, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States were behind this,” says Chris Bernadel, a member of BAP’s Haiti/Americas Committee. “During these massive protests, they called for all of these Western powers to exit Haiti.”
While Biden expressed support for Black Lives Matter and for democracy during his campaign for president, true support would have meant ending US meddling in Haiti’s affairs. This assassination relieves the Biden-Harris administration of the embarrassment of having to reconcile the contradiction between pretending to respect Black lives and democracy and supporting a dictator who had reigned after his term had ended on February 7.
That is why for BAP, it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger to kill Moïse because it is the Pan-European colonial-capitalist powers that are responsible for the suffering of the Haitian people.
BAP vigorously opposes any and all foreign institutions and structures intervening in Haiti. The Haitian people must be allowed to exercise self-determination and address their internal political situation without interference, as BAP noted in its July 6 press release.
Increasing Human Rights Violence in Haiti Amid
Continued US/OAS/UN Support for Illegal Government
Demonstrators in Haiti protest the Jovenel Moïse government (AFP)
(July 6, 2021) — Over eight days, from June 25-30, Haiti had been subjected to increasing state-sponsored, imperial and gang violence. Massacres killed almost 60 people in Port au Prince, including in Cité Soleil, Delmas and Pétionville, as well as on on Rue Magloire Ambroise. Prominent human-rights activist Antoinette (Netty) Duclaire and journalist Diego Charles were two of the victims.
In light of this violence, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) once again affirms its support for the Haitian people and condemns the continued US/UN/OAS backing for the illegitimate Jovenel Moïse administration. Not only do we repudiate the continued violations of human rights in Haiti, we denounce the attempts by the Moïse government and its handlers—especially the Organization of American States (OAS) and the US State Department—to force legislative and presidential elections and an illegal constitutional referendum under an undemocratic voting structure.
Moïse, who has been ruling Haiti by decree since January 2020, has been attempting to pass a referendum to re-write Haiti’s 1987 constitution.
“We support the Haitian people, who have maintained that there is no chance for credible elections to be held while Jovenel Moïse is in power,” says BAP member and Haitian Chris Bernadel. “We stand in solidarity with the Haitian people against the corrupt and illegitimate regime of Jovenel Moïse, which has been enabled through the support of the US, OAS and the United Nations.”
Illegal, according to Haitian law, the proposed referendum has been rejected by every sector of civil society, and opposed by the majority of Haitians.
Yet, a recent OAS report on Haiti not only supports the constitutional referendum, the organization also is pushing for Moïse to single handedly appoint a new prime minister, cabinet, and Provisional Electoral Council in order to move forward with both the referendum and presidential, municipal, and local elections.
These elections will be neither credible, nor legal. The current government is illegitimate. And currently, no clear path exists for free, fair and transparent elections under these conditions.
Yet, the white overseers of Haiti—the United States, the United Nations and the OAS—continue to push for this illegal referendum and elections. The United States has continued its material, logistical and political support of Moïse’s administration. It has spent at least $12.6 million since Moïse was elected in support of dubious elections and bogus political processes. Although the United States acknowledges that thus far, preparations for the referendum “have not been sufficiently transparent or inclusive,” Joe Biden’s administration has not come out against the referendum. Instead, the Biden-Harris administration has focused on the primacy of holding elections in the fall. At the same time, the UN and the OAS also have provided support for Moïse. The OAS has helped by revising the text of the proposed constitution, apparently to remove some of the more controversial aspects from the first draft. The UN also is advising the national police on an electoral security strategy.
Since February 7, when Moïse’s mandate as president had expired, BAP has been calling for the US government and the rest of the so-called “international community” to respect Haitian sovereignty and the will of the Haitian people. We have consistently condemned Western imperialist meddling in Haiti, and BAP members have rallied in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York to demand the Biden-Harris administration and Western entities—such as the Core Group and the OAS—end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes.
We continue to support the Haitian masses, and express solidarity with the Haitian peoples in their quest for sovereignty and freedom. We condemn the continued imperial violence in Haiti that has been dismissed as merely gang violence.
