Haiti: Imperialist-created hellhole or hotbed of fightback?

The call by the U.S. President Joe Biden and the United Nations for a multinational invasion of Haiti is motivated in part by their racist dread of yet another refugee crisis. If you ever needed an example of how capitalism is hell on earth, look at what the bosses have done to our class in Haiti. Yet even as capitalist institutions failed at every turn, workers organized a general strike. The masses, led by Progressive Labor Party, (see page 4), will lead the way out of this hellhole.

Working-class lives are expendable for all bosses. For the working class, trading in local gangs for the biggest gangster of them all—U.S. imperialism—is a losing strategy. There is just one choice that can fundamentally change conditions for our class and rid the world of profit and exploitation. The only solution is a communist revolution to smash capitalism and build a new society on the bedrock of need and commitment.

Capitalism in the raw
In July 2021, the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse, a U.S.-backed stooge, ignited a wave of unrest and terror from organized gangs that now control 60 percent of the country (Foreign Affairs, 12/1/22). The resulting chaos has led to deadly waves of hunger, rape, and extortion, and the lethal return of cholera, an absolutely preventable disease that is spread by contaminated water.

The unelected U.S.-backed prime minister, Ariel Henry, has asked for international military forces to intervene in Haiti to bring “order” to a society in upheaval. Henry had recently cut fuel subsidies and doubled the price of gasoline, which is now in short supply. Haiti’s ruling class has discarded the mask of liberal democracy and is calling on U.S. imperialism to install fascist discipline and protect the local bosses’ riches—and their despicable lives.

Local bosses back gangs
When the state lacks legitimacy, organized crime becomes a dominant political force. Gangs are essentially capitalists without state power or the “rule of law” that regulates the bosses’ vicious competition. Haiti’s power vacuum​​ is being filled by former cop Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier’s gang “G9 Family and Allies,” which controls access to the essential Varreux fuel terminal. For a country that runs on diesel generators, a blockade of the main fuel port means that schools and hospitals cannot function (The Daily Podcast, 12/8/22).

The G9 Alliance uses murder and sexist violence against women workers as systemic tools of terror (New York Post, 10/15/22). The gang is demanding amnesty, cabinet seats, and Henry’s resignation.  They are “financed by Haiti’s tiny clique of import-export oligarchs” (Foreign Policy, 10/31/22), which is nothing new. Working hand in hand with French and U.S. imperialists, these local bosses have played a critical role in Haiti’s impoverishment over the past two centuries. What may appear to be anarchy among rival gangs is in reality an internal fight among bosses against a backdrop of a divided and weakening U.S. ruling class.

U.S. impotence
Since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the U.S. has treated the Caribbean and Latin America as its “backyard.” But with the relative decline of U.S. imperialism, China’s capitalist bosses have made inroads in the region, investing over $10 billion in Caribbean countries since 2005.

The U.S. bosses’ weakness is exposed by their inability to respond by rallying its allies and its own military leaders into putting boots on the ground in Haiti. “The U.S. doesn’t want its own troops included” in the multinational force (New York Times, 11/29/22). It hasn’t been able to persuade Mexico, Brazil, Canada, or France to lead the assault. At this point, U.S. imperialists are uncertain if they can pull off an Afghanistan-style invasion.

One sure thing to come is an exodus of more refugees from Haiti to the U.S., where the state-sanctioned thugs of the U.S. Border Patrol will greet them with more racist terror, just as they did in June. Biden expanded temporary protected status for 110,000 workers from Haiti to stay for 18 months—a drop in the bucket for people who have lost everything to the instability and callousness of the profit system. It’s up to our class to welcome and organize refugees of capitalism.

Humanitarianism = imperialism
Beginning in 1791, enslaved Black workers in Haiti led the first successful revolution to abolish slavery, striking fear in the hearts of rulers around the world. Imperialists have been bleeding workers in Haiti ever since. Imperialist extortion of Haiti by the U.S. and France explains why Haiti suffers the worst poverty and inequality in the Western Hemisphere.

History shows us there is no such thing as "humanitarian intervention" in an imperialist system. The U.S., its allies, and the UN have been invading Haiti for more than 200 years, causing ever greater super-exploitation, impoverishment, and instability for workers (see box). The working class in Haiti is rightly feared by the bosses. The politicians and the gang leaders know that once they’re forced to remove their boots from the neck of the working class, their days will be numbered.

Workers have no borders
Progressive Labor Party must fight to turn this hellhole into a hotbed of revolutionary communist fightback To eliminate gangsters on the street and in the halls of government, we need communism.

Organize across borders! An attack on one is an attack on all. We must build international working-class solidarity through our mass organizations. Borders were created by the capitalists to define which workers were theirs to exploit. Working people have no nation!