Haiti Action Committee thanks all who participated in the April 27th Day of Action in Solidarity with Haiti. On Haitian Flag Day May 18th, Haiti Action Committee is calling for local actions everywhere to demand an end to US and Core Group support for the illegitimate government of Ariel Henry and funding for the murderous Haitian police and army! In the Bay Area we will be holding a demonstration starting in UN Plaza, and we encourage local actions wherever you are – demonstrations, educational events, social media blasts, calls to elected officials – to build momentum to support the movement for democracy in Haiti. End the ongoing nightmare Haitians are forced to endure, as they are shot dead in the streets, burned alive in their homes, and their resources plundered by an unelected cabal of murderers and thieves.
Haitian Flag Day Thursday, May 18th
#StandwithHaiti ACTIONS EVERYWHERE
Haitian Flag Day marks the day in 1803 when at the Congress of Akaye/Arcahaie the formerly enslaved by the French vowed to create a sovereign nation that they called Ayiti/Haiti rather than maintain any links to France. Today, while foreign powers occupy Haiti, this call for sovereignty remains as relevant as ever. The situation in Haiti today could not be more dire. The unelected and illegitimate US-backed prime minister Ariel Henry remains in power despite continuous mass protests demanding his ouster. Journalists, clergy, peasant-farmers, students, workers and others raising their voices in protest have been met with beatings, incarceration, rape, assassinations and mass killings.
Trotting out the familiar argument that “gang warfare” is the root of Haiti’s problem, the US and Canada are ramping up funding and training for Haiti’s notorious and corrupt national police force, including sending tactical and armored vehicles. As they did during the notorious Lasalin massacre, police, security forces and affiliated paramilitary forces terrorize opposition neighborhoods, most recently Bele, murdering and sexually assaulting residents, kidnapping, wrecking homes and accelerating land grabs.
These crises have their roots in the 2004 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and in the subsequent imposition of foreign occupation, coordinated through the United Nations. And yet, without a trace of irony, the same foreign powers and corrupt rulers responsible for this situation are now asking Haitians to believe that more intervention and more elite anti-democratic rule will somehow change all of this.
Only a fundamental change in Haiti of the kind envisioned, articulated and fought for by Haiti’s powerful grassroots movement, can reverse any of this. And the US government, as it has been so often, is the biggest obstacle that stands in the way.
Nineteen years after the February 29, 2004 coup that overthrew democratic and progressive governance in Haiti, the Haitian popular movement remains powerful and dynamic. As the people of Haiti deepen their fight to end this oppressive system, the US is orchestrating a new series of maneuvers to keep it squarely in place. The crisis is sharpening and the stakes could not be higher.
We demand:
Stop the massacres. Stop using our tax dollars to fund the brutal Haitian police and affiliated death squads
Stop supporting the Ariel Henry dictatorship
Stop attacking and deporting Haitian refugees
Support the Haitian people’s struggle for liberation
End the occupation. Sovereignty and self-determination for Haiti
For more information: www.haitisolidarity.net
Support Haiti’s grassroots movement: www.haitiemergencyrelief.orgPartial List of Co-sponsors: All African People’s Revolutionary Party [A-APRP], ANSWER Coalition-SF Bay Area, BAYAN-USA, Bay Area Cuba Solidarity Network, Bay Area Alliance for A Sustainable Puerto Rico [BAASPR], Black Alliance for Peace, Caminante Cultural Foundation, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Communist Workers’ League, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant [EBSC], Ecumenical Peace Institute, Four Nations Solidarity Coalition/California, Fuerza Mundial – Women of the Americas, Global Exchange, Global Women’s Strike, Justice Vanguard, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Moratorium Now, National Lawyers Guild SF, New York City Jericho Movement, Payday Men’s Network, People’s Eye Photography, People’s Organization for Progress, SF Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines [SF CHRP], Task Force on the Americas, United Black Association for Development Educational Foundation [UEF, Belize], Venceremos Brigade Bay Area Committee, Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike, Workers World
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Haiti Action Committee
PO Box 2040
Berkeley,CA 94702
31 years of solidarity with the anti-colonial grassroots struggle for dignity, democracy and self-determination of the Haitian people!
Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 