Re: [Marxism] Statement on Haiti from Lil Joe & Aduku Addae

[gdunkel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I thought Stan Goff answered their main point, a completely false
characteriztion of the ex-soldiers that were organized and paid by the US
to overthrow Aristide's democratically elected government.

Let me just add:  1804 in Haiti marked a revolution, a slave revolution,
one in which at least half of the Haitians died but one after which the
former slaves became free peasants, with arms that they kept until the
first U.S. occupation in 1915.

I have a chapter in "Haiti: A slave revolution" that describes the impact
this revolution had on the United States.
(See http://www.iacenter.org/haiti/impact.htm )

1804 marked the beginning of 200 years of intense U.S. hostility towards
Haiti, based on the intense racism of U.S. capitalism.

This hostility was inflamed when the Haitian people turned the election of
1990 into a mass movement and put someone they wanted, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, into office.

See

http://www.iacenter.org/haiti/celebr.htm

an article translated from Haiti-Progres, for a good description of the
impact Aristide's election had on the Haitian people.

I would locate the U.S.'s implacable hostility to Aristide in the mass
movement he inspired, that is still in the streets even after the US/French
occupation has been transmogrified into a UN occupation led by Brazil.

If you look at the New Year's greeting of the Base of Reflection of the
Mass Movements of  Lavalas, the coalition that has been coordinating the
struggle in Haiti since the Feb. 29th coup, you will see a firmly anti-
imperialist, pro-democracy,  pro-justice group.

Building solidarity with Haiti is part of the struggle against racism in
the United States.  But it has to be based on facts and careful analysis.

/greg

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