Slow motion genocide and resistance in Haiti

PHOTO & CAPTION: The hunger crisis in Haiti is the worst in many years

PHOTO: Displaced Haitian families take refuge in Port-au-Prince school by Antoine Lemonnier, IOM

CAPTION: Displaced families are hosted in a school in the center of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. – Photo: Antoine Lemonnier, IOM

by Seth Donnelly

On Dec. 6 and 7, 2024, at least 184 people were massacred in Wharf Jeremi, part of Site Soley, one of the most impoverished communities in the Americas, located by the seashore in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The majority of those murdered, 127, were elderly.^[1] The massacre was perpetrated by a “powerful gang,” more accurately labeled as a paramilitary unit, led by Jean Monel Felix, aka Mikano. Unarmed people were murdered by heavy weaponry and machetes; bodies were burned. Though this massacre has been characterized by US mainstream media sources as the “vodou murders,” allegedly motivated by Felix’s desire for revenge over his son dying from illness, in reality it is just one of many such massacres, most of which never make the US headlines.

Felix’s paramilitary is part of the Viv Ansanm alliance of “gangs,” i.e. paramilitary death squads, led by former Haitian police officer Jimmy Cherizier, known as “Barbecue.” Felix is a close associate of Barbecue. Death squads such as these are financed by members of Haiti’s upper class and heavily armed by major weapons flowing into Haiti from Florida. To identify them only as “gangs,” as the US media continues to do, obscures their relationship to sectors of Haiti’s government and business elite.

The death squads attack the popular neighborhoods of the poor that are bases of pro-democratic grassroots activism, such as Sity Soley, Belé, Solino and Lasalin, where the death squads massacre people of all ages and burn houses down, forcing a massive exodus. Death squads have perpetrated these crimes in collusion with the US-installed PHTK (Haitian Tek Kale Party) regime, as with the notorious Lasalin Massacre^[2] in 2018. In the Pont-Sondé Massacre this past Oct. 3, targeting a peasant community, the death toll has now risen to 115.^[3] According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, as of this October, more than 700,000, half being children, are now internally displaced.^[4]

Women and children are being targeted in particular for rape and sexual violence by the death squads. During the year 2024, there has been “a staggering 1,000% or 10-fold surge in sexual violence against children in Haiti, during an unprecedented crisis which has seen armed gangs continue to terrorize communities amid a growing humanitarian disaster.”^[5] According to a UN report from June 2024: “A very worrying increase in the number of rapes was reported by local sources in the communes of Carrefour, Cité Soleil, Croix-des-Bouquets, Delmas, Gressier and Port-au-Prince. In some areas, service providers reported receiving 40 rape victims a day.”^[6]

The massacres and massive increase in sexual violence are the bitter fruits of the US destruction of Haitian popular democracy. On Feb. 29, 2004, the US government carried out a violent coup in Haiti, orchestrating the overthrow of the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, along with thousands of other popularly elected officials of the Fanmi Lavalas party across the country.^[7] With President Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas in power, the Haitian people were achieving real gains: dramatically expanding access to healthcare and education, forming women’s groups and peasant cooperatives, advancing worker rights, doubling the minimum wage, taxing the rich, dissolving the brutal Haitian army, and demanding the French government pay back the billions it stole from the Haitian people as punishment for their independence.^[8]

Today, 20 years after the coup, Haiti remains under US/UN occupation. There is not a single elected official left in the country.^[9] Hunger in Haiti has reached an historic high, with 50% of the population now facing acute hunger.^[10] According to UNICEF data, by 2023, “nearly one in four children in Haiti also suffer from chronic malnutrition, known as stunting, which has long-lasting physical consequences.”^[11]

The leadership of Fanmi Lavalas, the political party in Haiti based in the poor majority, has referred to this violence and suffering as a slow motion genocide.^[12] Haitians who flee this genocide are being subjected to ruthless deportations, both from the US under the Biden administration^[13]and now, by the tens of thousands, from the Dominican Republic^[14] and from other Caribbean nations, following the lead of the US.^[15]

Amidst this systematic destruction of the Haitian nation and the exodus of the Haitian people, Haiti’s incredible oil and mineral wealth is more vulnerable to plunder by business interests.^[16]

The US government, the main purveyor of the violence in Haiti, is now engaged in a series of deceptions. While the Biden administration has been playing a lead role in mobilizing and financing an expanded foreign occupation of Haiti in order to allegedly combat “gangs,” the administration has not stopped the flow of US weapons into the hands of these paramilitaries. While the US has put out a reward for the capture of “gang leaders,” it has been widely reported inside of Haiti that US embassy officials hosted a visit with Barbecue at the US embassy in early October 2024 according to a videotaped statement by Barbecue. 

In an interview with Le Point/Radio Metropole Oct. 22, 2024, US ambassador Dennis Hankins confirmed that the US embassy has contacts and exchanges with gang leaders regarding embassy security.^[17] In addition, international media outlets, US media, individuals and religious figures advocating and promoting the activities of these paramilitary criminal gangs have recently met openly with their leaders whose whereabouts are supposedly unknown, but who in fact travel freely throughout the country. 

When communities organize self-defense networks to protect the people in their neighborhoods, the paramilitaries double-down in their terror. Barbecue recently reiterated what Haitians in the popular neighborhoods have been experiencing: that no one, not even children, would be spared his wrath.

Many Haitians believe that the US government is working with the paramilitaries. People remember that the US supported Emmanuel Toto Constant, the leader of the death squad “Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti” (FRAPH death squad) after the first US-backed coup against President Aristide in 1991. During its reign of terror between 1991 and 1994, FRAPH killed an estimated 5,000 people whose “crime” had been to vote in democratic elections.^[18] 

For much of this time, Constant was on the CIA payroll.^[19] Many Haitians are likewise quick to point out that it was the US trained former military commander Guy Philippe who participated in the 2004 coup, leading to the killings of an estimated 8,000 people in the following 22 months in the Port-au-Prince area alone.^[20] Going further back, it is documented that the notorious Tonton Macoutes death squads, operating under the US-backed Duvalier dictatorship, received training by the US military.^[21]

The Haitian people continue to struggle day in and day out for national liberation, defending and expanding their popular organizations, such as cooperatives, neighborhood defense networks, labor unions and women’s groups. They are struggling to regain the popular democracy taken from them by the 2004 coup and re-affirm their right to self-determination. 

Activists and organizations have come together across the Caribbean to issue this open letter to the US embassy in solidarity with their struggle.^[22] Solidarity groups like Haiti Action Committee continue campaigns of education and action to demand an end to US support for the terror now engulfing Haiti. In a recent action, people throughout the Caribbean and here in the US organized protests in conjunction with the release of the open letter to the US embassy. Far more global solidarity with the Haitian people is needed.

More than 220 years ago, on Nov. 18, 1804, Haitian revolutionaries led by the courageous fighter Francois Capox charged up a hill against all odds, in the face of massive cannon and gunfire, to finally defeat Napoleon’s army in the Battle of Vertieres, securing for the first time Haitian independence. Today, the Haitian people are still charging up the hill in a courageous effort to dethrone US imperialism. Here in the US, the heart of the empire, where are we in relationship to their struggle? Do we stand in solidarity?

For more information on how to directly donate to and support Haiti’s popular movement, go to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (www.haitiemergencyrelief.org).

For more information on how to take action here in the US in solidarity with the Haitian people, go to the Haiti Action Committee (www.haitisolidarity.net).

Notes

^[1] “Haiti gang massacres around 180 people, targeting elderly,” Reuters, accessed Dec. 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/haiti-gang-massacres-least-110-people-cite-soleil-rights-group-says-2024-12-09/.

^[2] “Report: The Lasalin Massacre and the Human Rights Crisis in Haiti – National Lawyers Guild.” National Lawyers Guild – “Human rights over property interests,” March 1, 2021. https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/.

^[3] “The Death Toll in a Gang Attack on a Haitian Town Rises to at Least 115.” Associated Press, NPR, Oct. 10, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/g-s1-27385/death-toll-in-a-gang-attack-on-a-haitian-town-rises-to-115.

^[4] “Over 700,000 Internally Displaced in Haiti as the Humanitarian Crisis Deepens,” Al Jazeera, Oct. 2, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/2/over-700000-internally-displaced-in-haiti-as-humanitarian-crisis-deepens.

^[5] “Children Face Unprecedented Crisis amid Rising Violence in Haiti,” United Nations, accessed Dec. 12, 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/11/1156826.

^[6] Quarterly Report on the human rights situation …, accessed Dec. 12, 2024, https://binuh.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/quarterly_report_on_the_human_rights_situation_in_haiti.pdf.

^[7] Robert Roth, “The Final Chapter Has Still Not Been Written: Remembering the 2004 Coup in Haiti,” CounterPunch.org, March 12, 2020, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/12/the-final-chapter-has-still-not-been-written-remembering-the-2004-coup-in-haiti.

^[8] “Pamphlets,” Haiti Action Committee, accessed Nov. 22, 2024, https://haitisolidarity.net/pamphlets/.

^[9] “Haiti Left with No Elected Government Officials as It Spirals towards Anarchy,” The Guardian, Jan. 10, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/10/haiti-no-elected-officials-anarchy-failed-state.

^[10] “Hunger in Haiti Reaches Historic High with One-in-Two Haitians Now in Acute Hunger: World Food Programme,” UN World Food Programme, accessed Nov. 22, 2024, https://www.wfp.org/news/hunger-haiti-reaches-historic-high-one-two-haitians-now-acute-hunger#:~:text=As%20Haiti%20continues%20to%20grapple,people%20in%20any%20crisis%20worldwide.

^[11] “Armed Violence Plunging Children into Severe Acute Malnutrition in Haiti,” UNICEF, accessed Nov. 22, 2024, https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/press-releases/armed-violence-plunging-children-severe-acute-malnutrition-in-haiti.

^[12]Joel Vorbe made this assessment during a presentation on April 6, 2024.

^[13]Adam Isacson. “A Tragic Milestone: 20,000th Migrant Deported to Haiti since the Biden Inauguration,” WOLA, Feb. 17, 2022, https://www.wola.org/analysis/a-tragic-milestone-20000th-migrant-deported-to-haiti-since-biden-inauguration/.

^[14] Evens Sanon, “Haitian Activists Demand Halt to Deportations as Gang Violence and Poverty Soar,” AP News, Nov. 7, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/haiti-deportations-dominican-republic-us-0ca0f181119e7a44e52366185fd7754a.

^[15] “Stop ‘Draconian’ Mass Deportations of Haitians Fleeing Gangs, Activists Say.” The Guardian, Nov. 14, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/haiti-mass-deportation.

^[16] Benjamin Elisha Sawe, “What Are the Major Natural Resources of Haiti?” WorldAtlas, Jan. 17, 2019, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-major-natural-resources-of-haiti.html.

^[17] “Le Soutien des Etats-Unis a la Transition” – Start at 6:55, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDGu5r8LHYc.

^[18] “U.S. Deports Emmanuel Constant, CIA-Linked Death Squad Leader, to Haiti,” SOA Watch, July 4, 2020, https://soaw.org/deportationofemmanuelconstant.

^[19] Stephen Engelberg, “A Haitian Leader of Paramilitaries Was Paid by C.I.A.,” The New York Times, Oct. 8, 1994, https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/08/world/a-haitian-leader-of-paramilitaries-was-paid-by-cia.html.

^[20] The Lancet, April 8, 2023, volume 401, issue 10383, pages 1131-1240, accessed Nov. 23, 2024, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)69211-8/abstract.

^[21] YouTube. Accessed November 22, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIwP-T-PpM&t=1s.

^[22] “Open Letter to the United States Embassy,” accessed Nov. 22, 2024, https://haitisolidarity.net/open-letter-to-the-united-states-embassy/.

Seth Donnelly is a member of Haiti Action Committee and the author of “The Lie of Global Prosperity: How Neoliberals Distort Data to Mask Poverty and Exploitation” (MR Press 2019).

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