The 13 million citizens of Haiti will soon have an appointed president and a large contingency of Kenyan and Canada-trained Caribbean troops to pacify any resistance to the plan that was hashed out in Jamaica in March of this year.

It has been more than a month since the leaders of the 50-year-old CARICOM, or Caribbean Community, completed their plan for a nine-member Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) for the strife-torn nation of Haiti, a member of CARICOM. The overwhelming majority of Haitians, however, oppose the plan outright, according to some of the most vocal defenders of Haitian self-determination. 

The plan for a Haitian government devised by CARICOM has given rise to a barrage of other problems that it won’t be able to ignore before trying to select a president for an incensed Haitian populus, the New York-based The Haitian Times reported in its April 6 edition.

“The presidential council is a waste of time,” said Jean Robert Argant, leader of the popular organization known as December 4 Collective. Argant calls for the deployment of the Haitian army as the first step in laying the groundwork for a new presidential election.

On March 29, 2022, the 35th anniversary of Haiti’s 1987 Constitution, Argant’s December 4 Collective rallied an estimated 3 to 4 million people into the streets in support of the Constitution.

“A month after CARICOM and Haitian stakeholders agreed on its formation, the council’s implementation has been delayed due to internal conflicts, opposition from various factions and the widespread influence of gangs in Port-au-Prince,” The Haitian Times reported. “These hurdles persist despite CARICOM leaders’ call for the outgoing government to promptly install the transitional body.” 

While trying to establish a foothold on Haitian soil in the face of increasing opposition, the 9 member TPC has been reduced to holding only Zoom meetings to conduct business, the newspaper reports.

“It is clear that the TPC approach is facing difficulties in gaining acceptance and has sparked serious skepticism among the majority of the population, as well as staunch opposition from esteemed legal scholars who question the legality of this entity,” the newspaper said.

INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE

The National Movement for Liberty and Equality of Haitians for Fraternity (MOLEGHAF, in French), an organization that includes Haitians in the world-wide diaspora as well as Black American and Canadian freedom fighters, is a member organization of the Black Alliance for Peace. In a February 12 statement, the group called for support of Haiti’s sovereignty and rejected the continued attempts by the United States and the West to force a military intervention and occupation in Haiti, the oldest free nation in the Americas.

“The people of Haiti insisted that Ariel Henry, the unelected Prime Minister, must give up the office as he was returning home from Kenya after signing an agreement to deploy Kenyan military police in Haiti. The people massed at Haiti’s two airports and blocked Henry from landing. He had to take refuge in Puerto Rico, where he announced that he would resign his office once a new government has been put in place. 

“The Haitian people are mobilizing once again,” the National Movement’s newsletter said. “The crackdown has intensified. This (imperialist) assault is creating a rapidly declining situation.

“Trade is paralyzed, and bandits seize or violate people, killing the poor and vulnerable. Almost the entire population lacks access to basic necessities. This situation helps us understand, at a higher level, how the imperialist system uses gang warfare to systematically attack collective well-being projects.”

On February 12, the Black Alliance for Peace issued a call “for the masses in the heart of the (US) empire to stand with Haiti against any foreign armed intervention. We also demand that the Kenyan government abide by its constitution and stay away from Haiti.”

CARICOM HIRELINGS

Although CARICOM traces its roots back to the progressive era of Caribbean leaders like Eric Williams and T. J. Harrison, it has remained essentially a pawn of the English crown. Most of the 15 full members and five associate members of CARICOM remain in the British Commonwealth. The legal system of England still prevails in these island nations for the most part. Haiti, never a part of the British system, did not join CARICOM until 2003. 

Dr. Jemima Pierre, professor at the University of British Columbia and Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, says that Haiti has been the signpost of freedom and liberation in the Americas since its victory against France and its system of slavery in 1804. 

“CARICOM did not want Haiti as a member, except for T. J. Harrison, the progressive leader of Jamaica,” Pierre said. “When it comes to leftist politics, Haiti should be the marker. Haiti helped arm and protect Simon Bolivar.”

But instead of embracing Haiti’s glorious history as an example, she said, the Core Group and their subservient Caribbean minions “use Haiti as a training ground for the military forces of the different Caribbean countries.” 

CORE GROUP BOSSES

Pierre is also the Haitian American coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace and is editor of the Black Agenda Report.

Insisting that there is no allowance for such a mechanism as the TPC under Haitian law, Pierre said in a YouTube broadcast on April 5 that the TPC is being rightly rejected by both the Haitian masses and most of the intelligentsia. 

“First of all, it’s not about the Haitian constitution. Second, it’s a US plan. It’s not a Haitian plan. Third of all, when they met that Monday after Ariel Henry said he would resign, they (the Core Group) met in Jamaica where Anthony Blinken was there. So, it’s the US, France, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil met with CARICOM to decide on a plan forced on Haiti. So, now they say they’re going to bring in Haitian voices to come up with a Haitian mass solution. A lot of people are saying it’s a ‘Haitian told’ solution. We’re told what to do. 

“At that meeting, they met for three hours without any Haitians in the room. They had a secret meeting to decide what to do. Somebody needs to explain to me why France came all the way over to this side of the world, negotiating Haitian political process. And why Canada?” 

“Haiti has a constitution that the US pays no attention to,” Pierre also said. “There’s no such thing as a Presidential Transitional Council, or PTC. This is something concocted by the US government under the cover of CARICOM. And this is where a lot of venom of the Haitian people towards CARICOM comes from. Especially Irfaan Ali, the president of Guyana, and Mia Mottley, the left-leaning darling of Barbados, have basically taken on the role of the Black face of empire. What the US has decided is that they’re going to choose some people that we think we can work with, and we will pick the Haitians that we want. And then create a seven-person Presidential council, with two observers, making 9 people altogether who will run Haiti until they come up with elections. 

There is nothing in our constitution that allows this,” she emphasized. “But they’re having CARICOM run these meetings. But there’s nothing about these meetings that’s democratic,” she emphasized. 

Pierre explains: “The way they chose Haitian participants is that everyone who participated had to agree that the first step after the presidential council is put together, they have to agree to military invasion.

“To be at the table, you actually have to agree to the terms of the conversation, which means that the US set the terms. The terms are you have to agree to a foreign invasion in order for you to actually be considered a part of the solution. And that itself is a no-go for anyone. And what’s going to happen is that the council has no legitimacy. And people participating in it are seen as traitors. And everyone is saying it has nothing to do with what regular people are saying… 

“It also recycles this same old political class that helps the international community, that is the US, France and Canada and the EU. Basically, you’re going along with what they say. They’re setting up Haiti to fail again. 

Even if the TPC plan is able to suppress some of the turmoil that’s raging in Haiti today, Pierre said, it’s not a real solution. The same problems will flare up again later on.

Haiti’s current and recurring crises represent just one of the four major problems plaguing the largest and perhaps the most significant Black nations on the world stage. Issues that have proven to be disruptive and cataclysmic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in the Sudan, and in Ethiopia are closely akin to those faced by Haiti. The Jackson Advocate will continue to cover and analyze these crises as a part of its service to an informed readership.