The July 7 assassination of Jovenel Moise ended his contested term as Haitian president and escalated an open battle for power—and riches—among Haiti’s capitalist bosses. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies are dictating who will be in charge as they compete with rival Chinese imperialists for future control over the Caribbean region, the historical U.S. “backyard.”
Haiti is a clear example of the fraud of “democracy” under the profit system. The country’s centuries of misrule and misleadership expose the fact that all forms of capitalist government—military dictatorships, “democratically” elected politicians, coups d’etat by the latest faction of insurgents—are dictatorships of the capitalist ruling class. Every government in the world today is built to serve the bosses’ need for maximum profit. The lives of workers mean nothing to them; we are brutalized and exploited in every nation on Earth. There is only one alternative that will change basic conditions for our class: a communist revolution to smash capitalism and create a new society run by and for the international working class.
The first great blow against slavery
In 1791, Haiti showed the way with a mass insurrection that ended slavery and struck fear in the heart of the bourgeoisie around the globe. Ever since, workers in Haiti have been under severe attack by local bosses and U.S. imperialists who saw their interests threatened. And ever since, those workers have kept fighting back! (see Haiti timeline, page 4)
The reality of Haiti today is that workers are struggling to eat and breathe while under the thumb of the capitalists. While Haitian politicians live the good life in their mansions in suburban Petionville, more than 80 percent of the impoverished working class lives on less than two dollars (U.S.) per day. Hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the 2010 earthquake still lack safe drinking water (In These Times, 1/12/20).
The decaying U.S. ruling class and the rotting liberal world order have played major roles in these atrocities, notably under the blood-soaked Clintons and the Obama-Biden administration. In 1994, after decades of U.S. support for the criminal Duvalier gang, Bill Clinton ordered an invasion of Haiti to save the presidency of the pro-U.S. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although Aristide promised a kinder gentler capitalism–lifting workers out of poverty with labor and education reforms and bringing corrupt businesses to heel–she proved ineffective and was ousted.(Boston Globe, 1/12/04). By the end of Aristide’s presidency in 2004, he left a trail of misery and corruption (The Week, 2/8/15), further enriching Haiti’s ruling class, and lining his own pockets with hundreds of millions dollars earned through bribes from cocaine trafficking (Associated Press, 2/25/04). Then, after an earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, the Obama-Biden administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation exploited the deaths of over 200,000 people to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into the hands of U.S. corporations and the military while the working class starved (In These Times, 1/12/20). If anything, the situation for the working class in Haiti is worse than in 1994 (Time, 9/24/19).
Democracy is capitalist dictatorship
The competition to succeed Moise is a fight among different sets of bosses for the opportunity to exploit the working class for their own gain. Democracy offers the false promise that workers can have some control over society, but under capitalism there can be no such thing. Democracy has been a continual disaster for the working class around the world. Ultimately democracy is a tool the bosses use to settle their differences, legitamize the brutality of their system, and dupe workers into believing they are choosing leaders to represent them.
The horrific material conditions for workers in Haiti are the direct impact of imperialist exploitation by the two original modern democracies, France and the U.S. The elections, the courts, and the entire political structure in Haiti is controlled by a small group of wealthy business people who use gun-wielding gangs to contest for dominance (Just Security, 7/9).
Workers of Haiti also have a long and proud history of bold, class-conscious fightback. In 1956, workers in Haiti staged a general strike that forced the removal of a U.S.-backed general, Paul Eugène Magloire. The U.S. then installed the mass-murdering Duvaliers, Papa Doc and Baby Doc, until Baby Doc was ousted by a mass rebellion in 1986. General strikes followed in 1997 and 2004.
The Haitian and U.S. ruling classes have joined to attack any uprising and to crush communist movements in Haiti. But they haven’t won, because the fightback continues! Progressive Labor Party keeps growing in Haiti, attracting workers who reject the dead ends of reformism and nationalism and have come to see revolution as the only solution.
Imperialist fighting in the Caribbean
Though Haiti has been mostly run by the U.S. ruling class for the last 100 years, the Chinese bosses recently have made inroads in the region: “China has poured billions of dollars of investment into the Caribbean while signing tax and trade deals in an attempt to wrest the region out of the West's sphere of influence and bring it under the sway of Beijing” (Daily Mail, 9/23/20).
In 2018, the Chinese ruling class persuaded the capitalist bosses in the Dominican Republic to go against the U.S. rulers and drop their recognition of Taiwan in favor of relations with the Chinese rulers. The U.S. had stuck with the unpopular Moise even as the country broke down because his ruling clique had generally advanced U.S. interests (New York Times, 7/19). Not long before Moise was killed, his administration acted as a U.S. proxy in attacking Venezuela at the United Nations (El Pais, 7/8).
While it is still unclear what forces were behind the assassination, it is clear that the current chaos has surfaced in the context of the U.S. bosses’ desperate struggle to hold onto control of the country and the region.
Communism is the only way forward
In recent years, the militant fightback of the working class in Haiti has been mostly diverted by the bosses into support of various capitalist opposition groups. But the fact remains that capitalism, whether it’s installed by elections or a junta, has been devastating for workers. The working class in Haiti has been an inspiration for 230 years. Their militancy and refusal to stop fighting has set an example for our entire class.
At the same time, the lesson of liberal class traitors like Aristide is that we must move beyond the limits of capitalism and fight for workers’ power with communist revolution. Replacing one capitalist for another will get us nowhere. We have no need for bosses of any kind. We have nothing to lose but our chains!
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U.S. and European imperialists exploit workers in Haiti for 500 years
The extreme poverty faced by workers in Haiti and the instability of the country as a whole is not coincidental. Chattel slavery and imperialism have made sure of it (see editorial on page 2):
1492 — Columbus lands and claims the whole island of Hispaniola for Spain. In the ensuing years, the indigenous population was nearly completely wiped out by disease, enslavement, and murder.
1664 — France takes control of the western part of the island and starts importing slaves in 1670. Slave insurrections were frequent. Some slaves escaped to the mountains and joined the few remaining indigenous people.
1791 — A slave revolt sets off the inspirational Haitian Revolution, the first time slaves overthrew slaveholders and took power. These former slaves establish a government, and U.S. and European imperialist powers are terrified of the potential spread of slave revolts and revolutions.
1802 — Napoleon sends a massive invasion force, including 40,000 troops from other European countries. France gains control of part of Haiti and tries to reestablish slavery, but is defeated after a brutal war that killed tens of thousands of workers in Haiti and ended with over 30,000 French and European troops dead. Poland’s military force refused to fight; about 100 joined the workers of Haiti. Afterwards, the Polish workers were the only Europeans allowed to remain in the country.
1804-1825 — France, Britain, and the U.S. impose a crippling embargo, destroying Haiti’s economy and forcing Haiti’s government to pay 90 million gold francs to France as compensation for “lost property,”—the freed slaves. The government is forced to take out high-interest loans from U.S. banks, hobbling the country with debt until 1947.
1915-1934 — At the request of U.S. banks holding Haiti’s debt U.S., Marines invade to prevent Germany from establishing a naval base. The Marines dissolve Haiti’s government. The U.S. State Department writes a new constitution, eliminating the prohibition on foreign ownership of land. When Haiti’s parliament refuses to ratify the new constitution, the Marines dissolve the parliament and enact the State Department’s constitution through a rigged election limited to five percent of the population.
1934-1947 — The Marines leave but the U.S. retains control of Haiti’s finances.
1956-1986 — The Duvalier dictatorships are backed by the U.S. to defeat a strong communist movement.
1991-1994 — A military coup removing Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power triggers sanctions by the U.S. and the Organization of American States. U.S. and UN troops then invade and occupy Haiti, initially to reinstall Aristide.
2010 — A devastating earthquake destroys much of Port-au-Prince and kills 300,000. This is used as an excuse for the UN, the U.S., and the Clinton Foundation to resume control over the country in the name of “security” and “rebuilding.”
2012 — Hundreds protest against the high cost of living and call for the resignation of President Martelly. They accuse the president of corruption and failure to deliver on his promises to alleviate poverty.
2017 — The Provisional Electoral Council declares Jovenel Moise the winner of the November 2016 presidential election ending a political crisis which began in October 2015 over allegations of electoral fraud.
2019 —At least four people are killed and dozens injured in nationwide anti-corruption protests against President Moise and other officials (see page 6).
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Brooklyn: solidarity with workers in Haiti
Brooklyn, NY, July 16—“What you are saying is right, we don’t need more of the same bloodsuckers in Haiti anymore!” These were some of the responses as people stopped to chat with Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends today in the center of the working-class Haitian community here as we rallied in support of the struggle of workers and students in Haiti. Selling CHALLENGE to passersby, we held signs in Haitian Creole, distributed leaflets in Creole and English, and spoke on the bullhorn in English and Creole about the struggle that has been going on against the misery and corruption created by the racist capitalist system (see editorial, page 2 ). And we linked the struggle in Haiti to the struggle of workers and students from Palestine to Colombia to Brooklyn.
We noted that the assassination of the Haitian president will not bring about any changes to the daily life of workers. All the usual criminals are vying for power, and the U.S. bosses are directing the show. The conditions of mass unemployment, hunger, need for clean water and decent housing and medical care, not to mention education—all these attacks on workers will not end until capitalism is overthrown and an egalitarian communist society is born, in Haiti and everywhere around the world.
We invite the workers in this Brooklyn neighborhood to join the struggle of the international working class. In fact, our PLP comrades in Haiti, when they learned about this small act of solidarity, and read the leaflet and the signs, said, “This is not a small action, it is big because it shows us that we are not alone in the struggle. It inspires us to continue the fight, to grow and recruit to PLP.”
