Washington, DC, October 19—Over 100 protestors rallied in defiance of a possible U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined this action, making contacts with fighters and bringing revolutionary communist politics to many participants by distributing CHALLENGE widely and pushing political leadership condemning inter-imperialist rivalry. A U.S. invasion of Haiti is bad for workers in Haiti and bad for workers internationally - PLP says smash racist borders!
There is economic and political disarray that has led to hunger, deaths in the street and even the return of cholera. The unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry and 18 members of his cabinet—firmly supported by the Joe Biden White House—have called for international military forces to intervene in Haiti to bring “order” to a society in upheaval. Henry had recently cut fuel subsidies, doubling the price of gasoline, which is now in short supply. The government has also called on the U.S. to send money, weapons, and police trainers to prop up the government and money. The U.S. is open to this. In addition, the Haitian government has called on the United Nations to intervene militarily.
But history shows us there is no such thing as "humanitarian intervention" in the world imperialist system. U.S. and UN troops occupied and intervened for over 100 years in Haiti, only causing ever greater impoverishment, barbaric violence, dictatorship, fascist repression, and super-exploitation of the working class. The last time the UN invaded, they left a trail of blood. The 13-year U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) brought cholera to Haiti, which killed 10,000 people and sickened more than 850,000 (AP News, 10/18). The MINUSTAH also raped and sexually exploited women as well as children (Al Jazeera, 10/6/17). THIS is what they mean by “order” and “stability.”
We can see other examples of the U.S. empire’s global trail of destruction in Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and more. Thus another U.S. invasion is a clear and present danger that will plunge the workers in Haiti deeper into the capitalist abyss. Nevertheless, as the CHALLENGE, 10/12 article chronicled, workers in Haiti are militantly fighting back: “Workers and students, fed up with their daily conditions, have blocked the streets in various neighborhoods, attacked politicians, and broken into and liberated goods from some businesses that have exploited them.”
Oust Henry and his U.S. gangsters
On October 17, thousands of workers across Haiti flooded the streets in every state and district holding banners rejecting imperialist intervention, calling for the ouster of Henry (AP News, 10/19). We stand with workers in Haiti in the struggle against the monstrosity that is U.S. imperialism for workers domestically and internationally.
Workers are right to demand Henry’s resignation, and we need to go beyond fighting for better reforms or to remove one imperialist puppet or another. As long as the twin evils of capitalism and imperialism exist, workers will be trapped in a vicious cycle of protesting to elect new champions of exploitation and misery to do the bidding of the Haitian rulers and their imperialist partners.
The international working class has the power to put an end to the merry-go-round of death by smashing the profit-grubbing and blood thirsty imperialist system that kills and exploits our class siblings around the world. WE DON’T NEED TO VOTE FOR THE BEST CAPITALIST SERVANT!
The working class must reject the bosses' deadly democracy and poisonous nationalist ideology, and organize in the mass movements. We need to build class conscious, antisexist, antiracist fightback led by Black workers and working women around the world. We need to consolidate the energy and lessons we learn in every battle against the capitalist imperialist rulers into a powerful revolutionary fighting force capable of turning the imperialist bosses' next global crisis into a class war for communism.