Throughout
recent Latin American history, it is hard to find a country that has
been as thoroughly manipulated and plundered by the United States as
Haiti has.
After
over a century of U.S. intervention — from the 19-year-long U.S.
military occupation that began in 1915 to the 2010 election rigged by
the Hillary Clinton-run State Department — Haiti has become the
ultimate neoliberal experiment that has forced its people to live in
conditions so horrible that rivers of sewage often run through the
city streets.
Even
Haiti’s own president, Jovenel Moise — who has presided over the
most recent phase of U.S.-backed plunder — recently called the
entire country a “latrine.”
Yet —
much as in 1791, when Haiti was the site of the first successful
slave revolt in the Americas — today the people of Haiti seem to
have finally had enough of being slaves in all but name and are
taking to the streets en masse in an effort to end the rule of the
Haitian Bald-Headed Party (PHTK), the U.S.-backed political party
with close ties to the Clintons.
For six
days, thousands of Haitians have marched through the country’s
capital of Port-au-Prince and other major cities, calling for Moise’s
ouster for corruption and gross economic mismanagement in recent
years, much of which can be traced directly back to the 2010
earthquake and the subsequent U.S.-UN “relief” effort that let to
rigged elections, caused a deadly cholera outbreak and sought to turn
the entire country into one massive sweatshop for American clothing
companies.
More
specifically, Moise has ignited popular ire after being implicated in
the embezzlement of a $4 billion loan given to the Haitian government
to develop the country via Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program and for
his failure to combat the double-digit inflation that has further
impoverished the Caribbean nation.
President
Moise has thus far responded to the protests much like the president
of Haiti’s former colonial ruler, France, where President Emmanuel
Macron has sought to disperse the Yellow Vest popular protest
movement with police violence. Similarly, Moise has ordered police to
shoot tear gas and live ammunition into crowds of unarmed protesters,
killing at least four people, including a 14-year-old boy who was not
even a part of the protests, and injuring scores more.
Despite
the violent response from the Moise-led government, protesters have
continued to come out in force, even stoning Moise’s personal home
on Saturday. That same day, Moise declared that he would “clean the
streets” of every protester by Monday.
Yet the
mass protests continued through Monday, when police were seen
standing down in Carrefour (a suburb of Port-au-Prince), no longer
willing to fire on protesters. In a video of the incident shared on
social media, one female protester yells that “the police are
afraid.” Late Monday afternoon, local reports asserted that PHTK
ruling elite were evacuated via helicopter from the wealthy enclave
of Petionville to the Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport,
apparently planning to flee the country — at least temporarily.
Other reports stated that at least one police officer had been shot
during Monday demonstrations that turned violent and saw several
businesses looted.
Local
media on Tuesday reported high turnout for protests in several
cities.
The
international response to the protests in Haiti has been limited,
with the UN warning Haitian protesters on Sunday that “in a
democracy change must come through the ballot box, and not through
violence.” This unintentionally ironic statement ignores the
documented meddling of the United States in massaging vote totals and
other manipulative tactics in the last two presidential elections.
This, combined with the fact that the U.S. has kidnapped and
overthrown Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a left-leaning populist
politician, each time he won an election — first in 1991 and then
in 2004 — has greatly reduced Haitians’ faith in their
“democracy.”
Full
report:
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