Port-au-Prince, Haiti—At least 8,500 African women, men and children were forced out of their homes due to violent conflict between Haiti’s neocolonial State-sponsored “gangs,” according to a June 14, 2021, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) report.
The so-called “gangs,” generally known to be funded by Haiti’s government officials, have been a primary cause of the rising insecurity in the country and most present in Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital.
The neighborhoods most affected are the highly-impoverished Martissant, Fontamara and Delmas, which have also been affected by the gang-kidnappings of our African people there.
The State-inflicted violence against the African masses in Haiti was multiplied as a counterinsurgent attack on the ongoing resistance of the people against the neocolonial regime of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, who was assassinated on July 7, 2021.
The violence between the “gangs” are manifestations of the conflict between sectors of Haiti’s neocolonial— or “white power in black face”—petty bourgeoisie and their struggle to become the dominant group of oppressors.
The 8,500 plus African women, men and children have now been added to the countless number of homeless Africans in Portau- Prince, most notably due to previous crises that have plagued us.
These crises include the hundreds of Africans whose houses were burned by the “gangs” during the fourth quarter of 2020 as well as the devastating January 12, 2010 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Port-au-Prince, which, according to a 2020 report by the United Nations (UN) marking ten years since the earthquake, has left over 32,788 people still living in tents.
Port-au-Prince is the capital and the most populous city of Haiti, with an estimated current population of 2,844,000 people, according to the UN.
The continued State-imposed violence only pushes our people further into poverty and despair.
State-sponsored “gangs” is an expression of the crisis of imperialism
Omali Yeshitela—creator of the revolutionary theory of African Internationalism and Chairman of the African Socialist International (ASI) that is made up of African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) organizations around the world—teaches us about the “crisis of imperialism.” This term first appeared in “A New Beginning: The Road to Black Freedom and Socialism,” the Main Resolution of the APSP-USA’s First Congress held in September of 1981 and later deepened in “An Uneasy Equilibrium: The African Revolution versus Parasitic Capitalism,” the Political Report to the APSP’s Sixth Congress held in 2013.
The crisis of imperialism is the climate that occurs as a result of the resistance of African and other colonized and oppressed peoples of the world against our colonial oppression. That resistance causes not only destruction of the current social system that rests on the back of our parasitic exploitation and oppression, but also splits between the imperialists and ruling class sectors who were once united in their colonial oppression of African and other colonized and oppressed people, as they compete with each other in attempts to solve their crises.
This same crisis extends to the neocolonial puppets they implant into our African so-called “countries” who visibly carry out the work of the imperialists in maintaining and furthering our colonial oppression.
The “gangs” that terrorize the streets of Haiti are illegitimate militia employed by Haiti’s government officials who themselves are serving the United States government and other white power imperialist forces. So, the crisis of the imperialists and all of its expressions become their own crisis and they express their crisis in the same fashions.
If they are to solve their crisis, it would be solved at the expense of the masses of the people. We must instead deepen the crisis of our oppressors.
Build and consolidate the African People’s Socialist Party on-the-ground in Haiti!
Point #10 of the APSP’s 14-Point Platform, “What We Want – What We Believe” states:
“We want the right to build an African People’s Liberation Army.” It goes on to explain, “We believe that true freedom, although often taken away, cannot be given to a people. We believe that African people are our own liberators, and that we have a right and obligation to build an African People’s Liberation Army to defend our political gains, our freedom fighters and communities, and to win our actual freedom from our oppressive colonial slave masters. We believe that neither meaningful freedom, nor guaranteed political and social gains, nor genuine liberation are possible without the assuring existence of an African People’s Liberation Army. We believe further that the only legitimate wars are wars of national liberation, and wars to oppose imperialist aggression, and that therefore, the only legitimate military forces for black people to serve with are military forces which defend liberty and repel imperialist aggression. Such a force would be the African People’s Liberation Army.”
Africans in Haiti must continue to resist all forms of State-imposed oppression and deepen the crisis of imperialism that has existed since before the African Revolution of Ayiti (Haiti) that was won in 1803.
Africans everywhere must realize that the solution to all of our problems anywhere is to tie our struggles to the struggle of African people everywhere as one African Liberation Movement.
We must build the APSP in Haiti and elsewhere and organize under its leadership to recruit our brothers and sisters into the International African Revolution being waged by African people around the world to overthrow the imperialist social system and free ourselves from colonialism.
Join the African People’s Socialist Party!
Long live African Internationalism!
Touch One! Touch All!
Koupe Tèt! Boule Kay!
Viv Ayiti!
Viv Revolisyon! Uhuru!
