Editor’s Note: The following is taken from Elikya Ngoma’s presentation at the September 15, 2021 webinar, titled “Haiti: “natural disasters,” NGOs and neocolonialism” hosted by the African People’s Socialist Party.
HAITI – On Saturday, August 14, 2021, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook the grounds of southwest Ayiti (Haiti), in between the Nippes and Sud departments of the country.
There has since been reported over 900 aftershocks; 2,248 deaths; 12,763 injuries; 329 missing people and over 129,000 damaged buildings and homes.
This earthquake immediately brought to the minds of many people the horrors faced by African people in Ayiti during the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince, on January 12, 2010, where over 300,000 African people lost their lives and about a million others were left homeless, most of them still homeless today.
Many of us were also immediately reminded of the various forms of exploitation and humiliation we experienced, such as the profiteering done by opportunists and parasitic organizations who would raise money in the name of African people in Ayiti without us ever seeing as much as a red cent; the kidnapping of our children by United States “missionaries;” the poisoning of our water with the Cholera disease by the United Nations, which would plague our people until 2019, infecting over 820,000 people and claiming just 200 lives short of 10,000; and the betrayal of countries like Chile and Brazil who would accept over 30,000 “Haitian” immigrants, only to have our people living in concentration camps and even stables.
Earthquakes are natural; lack of infrastructure causes disasters
“Haitian” Christians and Vodouyizan argue about whether the earthquakes and hurricanes are punishments from “God” for our Vodou or consequences of our conversion to Christianity.
This argument was especially “loud” on the August 14, 2021 date, because it also marked the 230th anniversary of the August 14, 1791, Vodou Ceremony at Bwa Kayiman, where enslaved Africans met to plan the African Revolution of Ayiti and swore to choose death over betrayal.
Many forces outside of Haiti have the same debate about which belief is to blame, but many others conclude that these acts of nature are not natural at all but are instead manufactured by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) as another one white power imperialism’s attacks on Ayiti.
It is not a matter of which belief system Africans in Ayiti do or should subscribe to, or if HAARP has created a special type of machinery to target us, but instead a matter of our country’s continuous impoverishment by the colonial entities and their neocolonial, “white power in black face,” puppets who steal all of our wealth and resources for their own benefit, meanwhile fostering a country with a severe lack of infrastructure that would protect us and lessen the damage done by these natural occurrences.
The only “powers” we are subjected to are the colonial powers known as the”United States,” “United Nations,” “France,” the entire white power system and the neocolonial system that must be first overthrown for us to have freedom, self-determination, and Black Power over our own lives.
Colonial capitalism sucks the blood of African people
Just like in 2010, people around the world wanted to know where they could donate resources to aid the Africans in Ayiti.
Many people knew right away to avoid the American Red Cross, which in 2010 raised over $500 million dollars that never went towards building anything in Haiti, as well as the Hillary Clinton Foundation, which raised and stole another $30 million dollars.
Ayiti is referred to as being a “capital of NGOs,” with the most non-governmental organizations (NGOs) per capita in the world.
Before the January 12, 2010 earthquake, there had already been over 10,000 NGOs in Ayiti and by 2020, that number doubled to roughly 20,000.
These 20,000 NGOs are not working to undermine the social system that imposes poverty onto African people nor are they working in the interests of the African masses of Ayiti, which is made obvious by the perfect negative correlation that exists between the decrease of our wealth and resources and increase of NGOs in our country.
In addition to the NGOs that prey on Ayiti and may even pray for catastrophic moments like these “natural disasters” where an influx of resources will be coming in from all over the world, individuals who also learned how sympathetic people can be after these disasters began to create illegitimate GoFundMe and other crowdfunding campaigns to fill their own pockets up.
In Ayiti, where the first few days after August 14, 2021 earthquake hit, locals were making their way to the affected areas to dig people out of rubble and make donations of water, food, clothing, etc., the State-sponsored militia known as”gangs” and “bandits” began creating blockages where the donors would have to pay them before being allowed entry to the affected areas or they would just have to turn away altogether.
No quick-fix solution for African people in Ayiti
The theory of African Internationalism, developed by Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, helps us to recognize that the problems our people face in Ayiti are caused entirely by the same colonial social system our ancestors fought against almost 220 years ago and therefore our only solution is to complete the mission initiated by our fierce leaders, such as the relentless and uncompromising Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
We have to join the revolutionary organization whose work is led by revolutionary theory and dedicate ourselves to organizing and fighting for the liberation of Africa and African people around the world and such an organization can only be the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which is located throughout the Af.rican world.
Point #1 of the African People’s Socialist Party’s 14-Point Working Platform, titled “What We Want – What We Believe” states:
“We want peace, dignity and the right to build a prosperous life through our own labor and in our own interests.”
We remain confident that once this is achieved, our people will never know the type of impoverishment, devastation, or exploitation mentioned earlier ever again.
Uhuru!
Freedom in our Lifetime!
Koupe Tèt! Boule Kay!
Viv Ayiti! (Long Live Ayiti!)
Viv Revolisyon! (Long Live the Revolution!)
Join the African People’s Socialist Party at APSPUhuru.org
