By Myrtha Désulmé
Myrtha Désulmé was born in Haiti, and raised in France and Jamaica, where she now resides. She is the foAunder and President of the Haiti-Jamaica Society, a Board member of the Haitian Forum for Peace and Sustainable Development, and represents the Haitian Diaspora in the Montana Group, a civil society movement working to resolve the ongoing Haitian crisis.
There are no more words to express the horrors which have become the daily reality of Haitians. It seems like an entire nation is being massacred while the world stands aside and looks.
The calamity that is unfolding in Haiti did not flare up by spontaneous combustion. It is the result of an extermination plan which has been 200 years in the making, since Haiti dared to shatter the foundations of the World Economic Order based on the heinous crime of slavery. The hegemonic powers that have engineered it are preparing to administer the coup de grace by putting everything in place to lead the country into a Rwanda-style genocide, down to the opening act of a presidential assassination. International officials are pretending to act, while wining and dining at an endless series of meetings, commissions, and emergency sessions, spouting empty platitudes about “restoring stability to our sister nation Haiti”. And just like Rwanda, once they have achieved their goal of seeing Haiti turned into a desolate burned-out wasteland, an open-air cemetery with corpses strewn all over the landscape, those who failed to act, will shed crocodile tears of regret, and deplore the fact that despite their best efforts, these unruly Haitians just couldn’t come to their senses.
The genocide is, in effect, well under way. The capital, Port-au-Prince, is encircled by gangs, who are actually commandeered death squads. People are holed up in their houses, terrified of going out, lest they be murdered or kidnapped. Schools, banks, courts, hospitals and businesses have been attacked, and are closing their doors one by one. Some die of starvation or illness in their homes. All are terrified by the thought that any minute of the day or night vicious barbarians might break down their door to kill or kidnap them. Hundreds of people are being murdered, and their bodies disposed of. No report is ever made, as relatives dare not claim their loved ones. All they can do is hide to cry. Victims are burned alive and beheaded. Corpses are left on the streets for the dogs to devour. Entire neighbourhoods are massacred and set on fire. Terrified survivors are forced to flee and sleep on the streets by the hundreds of thousands.
Despite persistent propaganda about endemic violence, Haiti had always maintained one of the lowest homicide rates in the hemisphere, 6.68 per 100,000 reported in 2018 as compared with Jamaica (43.92), The Bahamas (23.60), Trinidad and Tobago (37.13) and Guyana (14.25). But the criminal enterprise masquerading as the de facto government of Haiti has been presiding over cataclysmic mayhem of systematic destruction. PM Ariel Henry is carrying out the diabolical plan of the foreign powers who have installed him and maintain him in office. It is common knowledge that the ‘gang’ in suit and tie which forms the government supplies the streets gangs with an endless stock of weapons and ammunition to maintain this reign of terror over the Haitian people. Helen La Lime, who was until recently the UN’s Special Representative in Haiti, actually ignited the explosion of the gangs by praising their federation at the Security Council. A third ‘gang’ made up of foreign Ambassadors from the US, UN, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the EU, and the OAS, calling themselves the CORE Group, have banded together to carry out blatant interference in Haiti’s affairs while breaking every rule of the Vienna Convention. They pretend to champion democracy and good governance, but their actions are diagonally opposed to their official mandates, as they are at the root of the instability and chaos.
Despite all of the daily atrocities which have horrified all well-thinking persons, Henry, who has not a shred of legitimacy, has yet to breathe a single word, or take any action whatsoever to stop the violence. In fact, he has chosen the death squads as a form of governance. They are provided with strategy and military logistics to carry out their rampage, and are now even in possession of drones to locate their victims. The Minister of “Justice & Security”, who travels with phalanxes of body guards in a caravan of bulletproof vehicles, has blithely admitted that the State has lost control of the no-go zones, and told defenceless citizens that they’re on their own, and must defend themselves, opening a clear path to the Rwanda-style genocide.
For the better part of a century, the US and the multilateral institutions have systematically destroyed the Haitian economy. From inhumane economic embargoes and blockades; to wiping out the indigenous Black pigs which were the peasants’ bank accounts under the pretence of a supposed swine flu; to the destruction of Haiti’s flourishing rice cultivation so that farmers from Bill Clinton’s rice-growing State of Arkansas could flood Haiti with their surplus; to forcing Haitian governments to eliminate import tariffs thereby decimating all local production; to imposing foreign NGOs who have siphoned millions granted for recovery from natural disasters; to the foisting of corrupt governments who embezzled all of the resources meant for social and economic services; every door of economic opportunity has been systematically shut on the Haitian people. In October 2022, even while the UN World Food Programme rang the alarm on “catastrophic hunger recorded in Haiti”, with half the population suffering from “acute food insecurity”, those in their comfortable IMF offices “advised” the government to eliminate fuel subsidies for the second time within a single year, sending petrol products skyrocketing over 200%. Their ‘advice’ meant that a starving people now had to contend with inflation that hit 50%. With every avenue for survival blocked, Haiti was flooded with guns, becoming a mecca for drug trafficking, and violence and crime were established as the only lifeline for Haitian youths, who form 70% of the population.
On 27 February, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness led a CARICOM mission to Haiti. Save for the presence of Bahamas’ Minister of Immigration and Labour who has devised a vicious crackdown on Haitian migrants, the delegation was generally well-received. I flew to Haiti to attend, as my Civil Society Group known as the Montana Accord was invited to meet with the delegation. Prime Minister Holness sounded
genuinely concerned and moved by the testimonies which spoke of a country paralysed in every way, by fear, economically, in terms of business activities and all forms of mobility, and expressed a heartfelt determination to do his utmost to assist in bringing about a resolution.
But if CARICOM is truly serious about finding solutions for Haiti, then its leaders must take the time to understand that the problem is not whether or not to have a military intervention. The problem is freeing Haiti from the de facto government which has created the gangs, as confirmed by the gangs themselves, to stop the freedom movements demanding an end to the endless violence and terrorism of corrupt governments imposed by foreign powers. The end is another fraudulent election to retain the corrupt Pati Haitien Tet Kale (PHTK) party in power, and maintain Haiti under tutelage, abject poverty, chaos and devastation. CARICOM must make up its mind to step up and take intellectual and moral leadership of the crisis. It must muster up the courage to stand up for what is morally just, and not cower in fear of losing economic advantages from the bully on the block who is fomenting the destruction of Haiti. The anarchy and violence are being daily intensified by the government and their foreign backers to justify a military intervention, when what is needed is to stop the flood of guns, and an urgent disarmament programme. One of the most important acts recently taken by five CARICOM countries, in furtherance of their solemn duty to protect the life, health, and security of their citizens, was to join the Mexican government’s ground-breaking $10 billion lawsuit seeking to hold U.S. gun makers responsible for knowingly facilitating the trafficking of weapons of war for sale to drug cartels in Mexico. Mexico approached CARICOM asking them as independent sovereign states with the same problem to join the fight against the destruction and unbridled violence which have been unleashed on our societies. Sixteen U.S. states, as well as Antigua & Barbuda, Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and the humanitarian NGO ‘Latin American and Caribbean Network for Human Security’, which seeks regional disarmament, have also joined the suit. The brief states that arms manufacturers and distributors from a single country must not be allowed to hold law-abiding citizens of an entire region of the world hostage. It also cites the use of those firearms by Haitian gangs in violent crimes and kidnappings, which have led thousands of Haitians to flee their country. As a member of CARICOM, Haiti has also been invited to join the lawsuit. One would have thought that any government facing the level of mayhem which Mr Henry is dealing with would be the first in line to sign the brief. Whether or not Henry joins the brief should be a litmus test which the CARICOM Heads should use to gauge his true commitment to resolving the crisis. We, of the Haitian Civil society, know perfectly well that Ariel Henry will not join the suit, because the last thing he wants is to stop the flow of guns to Haiti, controlled as he is by his foreign backers from whence cometh the guns. We are therefore organising to join the suit ourselves, and ask CARICOM to speak up for Haiti and back our initiative.
Out of CARICOM’s 12-points Mission statement, one purports to “ensure that social and economic justice and the principles of good governance are enshrined in law and embedded in practice”, and another asserts “respect for the rule of law”, and pledges to “protect the assets of the Community, and abhor corruption, crime and criminality in all its forms.” In 2006 CARICOM established IMPACS as a Regional Task Force on Crime and Security to identify, analyse, and recommend a way forward in dealing with the fundamental causes of crime and security threats in the region. When will CARICOM finally implement all of these lofty ideals?
We ask that Haiti be placed front and center on the agenda and prioritized at the Regional Symposium on Crime and Violence, which CARICOM has planned for 17-18 April in Trinidad & Tobago, where they intend to treat crime as a public health issue, find its roots and heal it from the proactive and preventative side. What the conference should also be about is joining hands with Mexico and rallying all hemispheric forces to put an end to this scourge of guns.
The entire world is convulsing over what is unfolding in Ukraine. There are more deaths in Haiti than in Ukraine. In our CARICOM sister country, Haitians too have a right to live.
