By Haiti Action Committee
Thursday, May 18th Stand with Haiti! San Francisco Protest
Denounce US/Core Group Support for Dictatorship!
4 PM – UN Plaza 355 McAllister Street
On Haitian Flag Day May 18th, Haiti Action Committee is calling for local actions everywhere to demand an end to US and Core Group support for the illegitimate government of Ariel Henry and funding for the murderous Haitian police and army! In the Bay Area we will be holding a demonstration starting at 4pm in UN Plaza San Francisco, and we encourage local actions wherever you are – demonstrations, educational events, social media blasts, calls to elected officials – to build momentum to support the movement for democracy in Haiti. End the ongoing nightmare Haitians are forced to endure, as they are shot dead in the streets, burned alive in their homes, and their resources plundered by an unelected cabal of murderers and thieves.
Haitian Flag Day Thursday, May 18th
#StandwithHaiti ACTIONS EVERYWHERE
Haitian Flag Day marks the day in 1803 when at the Congress of Akaye/Arcahaie the formerly enslaved by the French vowed to create a sovereign nation that they called Ayiti/Haiti rather than maintain any links to France. Today, while foreign powers occupy Haiti, this call for sovereignty remains as relevant as ever. The situation in Haiti today could not be more dire. The unelected and illegitimate US-backed prime minister Ariel Henry remains in power despite continuous mass protests demanding his ouster. Journalists, clergy, peasant-farmers, students, workers and others raising their voices in protest have been met with beatings, incarceration, rape, assassinations and mass killings.
Trotting out the familiar argument that “gang warfare” is the root of Haiti’s problem, the US and Canada are ramping up funding and training for Haiti’s notorious and corrupt national police force, including sending tactical and armored vehicles. As they did during the notorious Lasalin massacre, police, security forces and affiliated paramilitary forces terrorize opposition neighborhoods, most recently Bele, murdering and sexually assaulting residents, kidnapping, wrecking homes and accelerating land grabs.
These crises have their roots in the 2004 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and in the subsequent imposition of foreign occupation, coordinated through the United Nations. And yet, without a trace of irony, the same foreign powers and corrupt rulers responsible for this situation are now asking Haitians to believe that more intervention and more elite anti-democratic rule will somehow change all of this.
Only a fundamental change in Haiti of the kind envisioned, articulated and fought for by Haiti’s powerful grassroots movement, can reverse any of this. And the US government, as it has been so often, is the biggest obstacle that stands in the way.
Nineteen years after the February 29, 2004 coup that overthrew democratic and progressive governance in Haiti, the Haitian popular movement remains powerful and dynamic. As the people of Haiti deepen their
fight to end this oppressive system, the US is orchestrating a new series of maneuvers to keep it squarely in place. The crisis is sharpening and the stakes could not be higher.
We demand:
Stop the massacres. Stop using our tax dollars to fund the brutal Haitian police and affiliated death squads
Stop supporting the Ariel Henry dictatorship
Stop attacking and deporting Haitian refugees
Support the Haitian people’s struggle for liberation
End the occupation. Sovereignty and self-determination for Haiti
For more information: www.haitisolidarity.net
Support Haiti’s grassroots movement: www.haitiemergencyrelief.org
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Haiti Action Committee
PO Box 2040
Berkeley,CA 94702
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