Stop Interfering in Our Lives: Haitians Protesters Condemn US Support for
Dictator
Protests in Haiti have led to hundreds of deaths yet have drawn little
attention in the west, thanks in large part to its strongman leaders
continued loyalty to the United States.
by Alan Macleod
February 15th, 2021
Mint Press
By Alan Macleod
After five years of highly contentious rule, Haitian president Jovenel Moïse
was scheduled to finally step down last week. However, his announcement that
he would stay in office for (at least) one more year brought fresh impetus
to nationwide protests that have continued almost unbroken since 2018. The
protests have led to hundreds of deaths yet have drawn little attention in
the West, largely because Moïse continues to be a loyal U.S. ally.
Thousands of people are out on the streets of Port-au-Prince daily, building
barricades, burning tires, and demanding the presidents resignation. Many
have been met with rubber bullets and even live ammunition from Moïses
forces.
Increasingly, however, public anger and frustration are turning towards the
United States, and in particular, U.S. Ambassador Michele Jeanne Sison.
Down with Sison has become a rallying cry of the movement after the U.S.
State Department threw its weight behind Moïse, backing his plan to stay in
power until next year. In accordance with the Organization of American
States position on the need to proceed with the democratic transfer of
executive power, a new elected president should succeed President Moïse when
his term ends on February 7, 2022, said State Department spokesperson Ned
Price.
In a widely shared video on social media, one Haitian protester sent a
message directly to the ambassador. Madame Sison
Haiti is not for George
Bush. Its not for the Clintons; it is for Jean Jacques Dessalines, he
says, referencing the countrys revolutionary hero. Sit your ass somewhere
and stop interfering in our lives and in our nation
Down with Jovenel. Take
him away and do whatever you want with him, he adds.
Experts appeared unsurprised that the United States was drawing the
protesters ire. The embassy is making clumsy attempts at fending off a
crisis of legitimacy that has been mounting for years now, Jeb Sprague,
author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, told
MintPress News this morning. The US government holds the biggest share of
responsibility, with the OAS and UN coming in a close second.
The U.S. has been interfering in Haitian politics throughout the nations
200-year existence. For decades, it refused to recognize the new republic,
fearing that legitimizing the slave uprising led by Toussaint LOuverture
and Jean Jacques Dessalines would inspire its own enslaved black population
to rebel. It also supported the forced payment of enormous reparations to
France, something which Haiti was not able to pay off until 1947.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, the United States directly
occupied Haiti, doing so for 19 continuous years between 1915 and 1934. At
other times, it kept vicious and brutal dictatorships in place on the
island, most notably the regimes of François Papa Doc and Jean-Claude
Baby Doc Duvalier. Baby Doc was overthrown by a popular rebellion in 1986,
paving the way for the countrys first popularly-supported leader,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, elected in 1990 (despite considerable American
pressure against it). Aristide was quickly overthrown with American help,
and after he was reelected again, the U.S. engineered another coup in 2004,
exiling him to South Africa. Since his banishment, Washington has partnered
with successive rulers to plunder the Caribbean nation. This process
accelerated after the devastating 2010 earthquake that left Haiti in such a
poor state that it was powerless to stop a foreign takeover of the island
engineered by the U.S. and the UN.
The political scene in Haiti has been manipulated through a long history of
Western intervention, Sprague said. Today we see the latest example, with
the US backed government of Jovenel Moïse attempting to illegally do away
with the countrys anti-Duvalierist constitution.
After dismissing parliament last year, Moïse has been ruling by decree.
While he has lost support from a number of important sectors of society,
including the influential Catholic Church, if history is any judge,
continued backing from Washington could remain crucial in extending his rule
for at least one more year one reason why the protest movement is turning
its sights directly towards President Biden and the U.S. embassy.
