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
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
Partial 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, CODE PINK, 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, Haiti Justice Committee of Minnesota, Human Agenda, International Action Center, Justice Vanguard, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Moratorium Now, National Lawyers Guild SF, New Afrikan People’s Organization [NAPO], New York City Jericho Movement, Payday Men’s Network, People’s Eye Photography, People’s Organization for Progress, Priority Africa Network, SF Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines [SF CHRP], Socialist Action, Task Force on the Americas, United Black Association for Development Educational Foundation [UEF, Belize], US Palestinian Community Network [USPCN], Venceremos Brigade Bay Area Committee, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Santa Cruz, CA, USA branch, Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike, Workers World Party
Support Haiti’s grassroots movement! Donate at www.haitiemergencyrelief.org
