Haiti: Beware of Washington’s Trap!

Berthony Dupont, Black Agenda Report, August 24, 2022 — The United States uses its puppet, the Organization of American States, to continue destabilizing Haiti.

The Haitian political crisis is a concrete example of cynical manipulation by the imperialist powers. Is it an examination of conscience that the Organization of American States (OAS) has just carried out, when in the last Communiqué of the General Secretariat on Haiti, it acknowledged that the international presence in Haiti was only a “strategy of erroneous policy”?

What compelled the hemispheric organization to make such revelations? “The last 20 years of the international community’s presence in Haiti constitute one of the most important and manifest failures of measures implemented and actions carried out within the framework of any international cooperation action whatsoever.” Isn’t this a game of hide and seek, or even a game of dupes?

Is it a coincidence that, throughout the confusing text of the OAS, reference is made to any international community without ever mentioning the real master of the game, the real leech: the United States of America? Not really!

The OAS, under the rule of the United States, should have had the courage to tell the whole truth, if it was not hiding something. It is obvious that Washington since the popular movement of 1986 has been worried and fears any unstable situation in the country.

To say the least, and we have repeated it many times in our columns: Washington is primarily responsible for the architecture of this lamentable failure in Haiti. It was the American leaders who facilitated or imposed in complicity with the OAS an uninterrupted succession of autocrats at the head of the country. The occupation of 1915-1934 turned into a domination even more alive than ever.

To plan the war against Iraq, didn’t Washington express in February 2003 that “if the UN does not do what we want, then it is irrelevant”, it is useless? So, this history of international community is just a cover for Washington to show a so-called measured character of its policy, of its traditional imperialist power and, thus, to hide its true face. The truth is that the United States has been the instigator of a whole panoply of occupations of the country under the cover of the United Nations with a massive military presence under the pretext of a “Stabilization and Peace Mission” which, in reality, has served precisely to destabilize and deinstitutionalize the country.

What is sad, not to say comical, about the OAS Communiqué is this clarification that “It is absurd to claim that under this scheme of destruction, Haitians who are completely alone, polarized and with very few resources can rebuild or build a project of security, re-institutionalization and development that allows 12 million inhabitants to recompose peaceful coexistence.”

It is very bad to know the Haitian problem. Certainly, we are not a perfect people, we had made mistakes, committed nonsense of all kinds. But it is also true that the OAS cannot ignore all the attacks fomented by the United States to destabilize our country. Cascading coups to every popular, nationalist government that tried to bring some improvement to the country.

While reactionary governments are always welcomed by the United States and these two tentacled institutions: the OAS and the UN.

We cannot turn this page without making these edifying reminders, which are recent concrete events such as: the coup d’état in 1950 against President Dumarsais Estimé, and those against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, (1991) and (2004) without forgetting at that time the freezing of $ 500 million in emergency humanitarian aid. The United States has cut off bilateral and multilateral funding sources to the point of leaving the Haitian economy totally collapsed.

The Haitian situation as it is now is the consequence of US policy in Haiti and this is exactly what all US administrations dreamed of without exception. The violence was instituted by the support of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which created and financed in 2004 an armed rebellion to fight the power of the time. At that time, the US was funding the reactionaries of the opposition, most of whom are key players in the current multidimensional crisis. In how many elections in Haiti, has the United States not intervened to impose its diktats while financing the putschists? So who caused this explosive situation of insecurity in the country? Who lit the fuse? Who set the powder on fire? This is what contributes to the structural decay we are currently experiencing.

In fact, this statement by the OAS under the leadership of the very reactionary Luis Almagro is yet another repetition of a well-orchestrated scenario of bluff and hypocrisy fabricated by Washington to continue to dismantle our country and invariably deliver it to anarchy. Despite these fine findings, this Communiqué cannot be in the interest of the country or the Haitian people.

What is worse, when the OAS without any respect for the Haitian people proposes certain elements of processes to remedy this situation while taking care to add these “processes require the cooperation of the international community, obviously for everything related to the necessary resources, whether financial, human or material”. Isn’t it asking us to rely on the same dark forces that destroy us to get us out of the slump in which they keep us going?

The Haitian people in struggle for fundamental change must do everything in their organizational capacity not to fall into this other trap that the United States is setting for us through these crocodile tears of the OAS. Through this perfidy, Washington seeks to make it easy for the protagonists of the transition for their dialogue, so that we return to square one of our misfortunes.

In this context of upheaval, the people are fed up with the American criminals, the duplicity of the United Nations (UN), and the treacherous Organization of American States (OAS), a kind of US Ministry of Colonial Affairs that suddenly become benefactors. All the Haitian people are asking for is to leave them in peace and take their destiny into their own hands. For he can carry his aspirations with great hope, solve his problems in solidarity with other fraternal peoples. A united people will always win and will never be defeated.

This is the deep conviction of all peoples struggling for their full sovereignty.

Berthony Dupont is Director of Haïti Liberté .

This article was originally published in Haïti Liberté .