May Day: Haiti

HAITI, May 1 — On May Day, comrades joined the May Day march with more than 1,000 participants: workers, teachers and students. We distributed hundreds of flyers and led chants.
The march started at the SONAPI (free trade zone industrial park) and wound its way to the Champs de Mars, a large public park in front of the National Palace where tens of thousands of workers lived in tents for more than two years after the 2010 earthquake.
The police attacked the march and one marcher was punched in the eye and two students were arrested. One, a close friend, was beaten in the police precinct. In response, students at the Faculté d’Ethnologie organized a two-day strike on campus demanding their release; there were also several days of street demonstrations, which were attacked by the cops.
Other comrades participated in a speak-out of garment workers, a way to share the daily misery experienced by workers and to press for their demands for an increase in the minimum wage.
In the countryside, a comrade organized a meeting on May Day with 20 farm workers, led by one who is close to Our party. Later in the town’s public square, we showed a documentary film with more than 500 people. There was a lively discussion afterwards, in which communist ideas and our Party was discussed. In another town, a comrade organized a May Day rally and is engaged with other residents of the area in a struggle to take over for public use certain infrastructures left by an NGO.