There is in course a popular rebellion in Haiti, with unpredictable consequences.
By Daniel Sugasti.
The country is exploding politically, taken by demonstrations and barricades, apparently self-organized. There are also sackings in shopping malls. The center is Puerto Principe, the capital, and the northern city of Cap-Haitien.
The trigger was the attempt, by the Jovenel Moïse government, on last Friday 6, to increase between 40% and 50% the fuel price. Especially carbon and kerosene, most used by the poor population to cook and light their houses. Gas and even electricity are less accessible, in midst of the known situation of misery that affects most of the Haitian people. So far, three people have died in hands of the government’s repression.
Didier Dominique, from Batay Ouvriyé, highlights the role of the working class in the explosion of this process: “in fact, it was the textile working class (SOTA-BO) that, before everyone else, began the protest, with their struggle for minimum wage. The protest became a revolt and, after the fuel issue, a serious uprising.”
Another report, from the journalist Henry Boisrolin, says:
“For days we have been living in an insurrectional state in almost every region of the country. The streets are blocked, there are fires, barricades and violent confrontations in several places. This situation is the result of an accumulation of conflicts, discontent and confrontations by the working class, which have been developing for tears before the anti-popular and pillaging measures by the puppet government of the current president Jovenel Moïse. […] The popular clamor and weariness, expressed in the barricades and in the streets, demand the resignation, the fall, of this government.”[1]
The fuel price increase is part of a commitment with the IMF, signed on February, that pretends to impose a package of neoliberal measures against the already devastated Haitian people.
The strength of this uprising is so much that Moïse was forced to step back and annul the decree of fuel-price increase on Saturday night. Also, the president called to “stay calmed and go back home.” But this desperate measure did not end the protests, that are more and more oriented against the government. The labor and social organizations called a general strike for July 9 and 10 in rejection of the price increase.
Instability generated an alert in the US embassy, for “nationals” in the territory to avoid to go out to the streets. Some airlines canceled the flights. There are panic signals among the dominant class. The former president’s family, Michelle Martelly, ran to the Dominican Republic. Other rich families, like members of the Moïse cabinet, also pretend to run towards the other side of the island.
The Haitian people once again shows its rebellion and fight disposal. It shows the way to the working class and other exploited in Latin America and the world. This is how you confront imperialist plans executed by the puppet government: with rebellion, in the streets, seeding terror among the dominant classes.
The process of popular uprising in Haiti deserves active solidarity and full attention by the revolutionaries and social activists. It is a direct confrontation with imperialism, in the poorest country in America, the protagonist of the first and only victorious black revolution in history.
From the IWL-FI, we express our unconditional solidarity with the Haitian people. We harshly condemn the repression by the government and UN “peace troops,” which count with many soldiers from other Latin American countries, sent at the time to Haiti by the so-called “progressive governments” – Lula, Evo, Tabaré Vázquez, Kirchner, Lugo, Dilma, etc. – and kept there by the current “right-wing” governments, equally servant to imperialism.
The Haitian people’s struggle is the struggle of the Latin American and global working class.
Down with Moïse!
UN troops, MINUJUSTH, out!
Long Live the Haitian people’s rebellion!
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Notes:
[1] See: https://www.andnoticias.cl/mundo/788-sublevado-el-pueblo-haitiano-manifestantes-controlan-casi-todo-el-pais
