By Stephen Sefton on March 19, 2024
Haiti, photo: DW
The zionist genocide of the Palestinian people and the political and socio-economic crisis in Haiti both have their origins in their respective episodes of destructive foreign intervention in the first decades of the last century. Of course, the historical background also has some aspects in common. In the case of Haiti, its successful struggle for independence at the beginning of the 19th century was stifled by the aggressive imperialist extortion of France and the ruthless harassment of the imperial powers in the Caribbean region, until the invasion and occupation of the country by the United States from 1915 to 1934. In the case of Palestine, for four hundred years it was a territory ruled by the Ottoman Empire until the British military occupation at the end of the First World War, which ended the hopes for independence of the population, at that time 90% Arab.
Palestine, photo: Yaimi Ravelo
So in their contemporary history, Haiti and Palestine have a common starting point a hundred years ago with their military occupation by Western powers. In Haiti, the Yankee occupation bequeathed the country chronic political instability that ended with the dictatorship of the Duvalier family. In Palestine, the end of the British occupation led to the imposition of a colonial state based on ethnic cleansing and racist Zionist supremacy. In both cases, the Western powers justified their inhumane actions with the usual hypocritical cynicism, claiming that their intention was to promote and defend democracy in the respective regions, the Caribbean in the case of Haiti and West Asia in the case of Palestine.
In fact, naturally, their real intention in both cases was to suppress popular aspirations for sovereign independence, which has always been the policy of the United States and its allies around the world. It is the reason for their endless aggression against Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, against Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, against Syria and Yemen, for their ill-conceived war against the Russian Federation and for their constant provocations in preparation for a military aggression against China. While revolutionary governments promote the genuine democratization of their countries’ societies, governments submissive to imperialist demands continue to simulate the hollow electoral democracy of the West. Hollow, because the elections in the countries of North America and Europe offer merely a false appearance of choice between various ideological options.
In truth, Western populations are allowed to decide only which flavor of the union of state power with capitalist corporate power they prefer. Essentially, they get to choose between liberal fascism and conservative fascism. Instead, it is the majority populations of the world that from time to time have the opportunity to vote the wrong way, from the perspective of the West. For example, in 1998 with the election of the Eternal Commander Hugo Chávez Frías in Venezuela, or in 2001 when the population of Haiti voted for Fanmi Lavalas and Jean Bertrand Aristide or in 2006 when the population of Gaza elected Hamas. In all these cases, the United States and its allies did not delay in implementing one or another form of aggressive intervention to achieve a government with policies to their liking.
In the case of Venezuela, with the failed coup attempt of 2002, in Haiti the election of President Aristide was followed by the coup of 2004 andthe 2006 election of Hamas signaled the beginning of repeated israeli massacres of civilians in Gaza and the intensification of the apartheid system against the entire Palestinian population. By contrast, the United States and its allies generally have no problems with elections in countries that follow the model of Western pseudo-democracies. What does bother them are processes of true democratization driven by revolutionary governments. The last ten years have given one example after another of how progressive governments, once they arrive in office, have been unable to implement their programs.
Now, in Colombia, President Petro is facing that situation and also President Lula da Silva in Brazil. In Mexico, Andres Manuel López Obrador has advanced to some extent with the so-called fourth transformation of his country and it is expected that his political project may well continue with Claudia Sheinbaun after the presidential election next June. Because, as has been clearly seen in Ecuador, even if a large part of a progressive program is implemented, without continuity to the policies initiated, it is almost impossible to sustain it, or to defend its achievements. Other clear examples of the futility of Western democracy as a system capable of ensuring the democratization of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have been the governments of Pedro Castillo in Peru, Alberto Fernández in Argentina and Gabriel Boric in Chile.
In all these countries the supposedly progressive movements that take office in government face an antagonistic judiciary, a sell-out anti-patriotic political opposition, anti-democratic police and armed forces, a reactionary church sector, a powerful, greedy and corrupt business sectors, all backed up and supported by biased, mendacious mass media. For the US and European ruling elites, these are indeed the essential components of their variety of democracy, precisely because they make true democratization impossible and guarantee the continuity of their neocolonial influence in the majority world. The true face, the essential values of the Western political class and its owners in the corporate elites of their countries, are in plain sight for everyone who observes their support for the terrorists in Syria, for the regime of nazi sumpathizers in Ukraine and the zionist genocide in Palestine.
What all this implies for Palestine and Haiti is constant, systematic misrepresentation of the true political situation in their countries with the aim of justifying, in Palestine, genocide and, in Haiti, armed intervention to impose yet another neocolonial puppet government.. It is very relevant to remember the words of President Comandante Daniel Ortega about Haiti, “The first Nation that became independent in Our America was Haiti, that long suffering, heroic, martyred People… and it was Haiti, incredible as it may seem, the Haitian people who gave weapons and gave solidarity, gave support to the Great Liberator Simón Bolívar, so that he would continue the battle for the freedom of Our America. Notice what different attitudes, the Haitians with a solidarity attitude seeking their Freedom, on the other hand the Great Powers and the wealthy, looking for gold and looking for slaves so as to exploit the land better, and simply exterminating anyone who did not submit.”
Little has changed after two centuries. In the same way that the Yankees deployed their psychological warfare in Nicaragua against the struggle of our General of Free Men and Women, slandering Sandino, calling him a mere bandit, in the same way they despised the struggle of Haitian patriot Charlemagne Peralte against the Yankee occupation of Haiti. They murdered Charlemagne Peralte by means of a treacherous trap, just as they murdered Sandino. Now the various Haitian patriotic forces, including paramilitary armed groups that used to fight each other, have organized to confront both the corrupt security forces at the service of the Haitian elite and the neocolonial impositions of the United States and its allies. The armed struggle in Haiti has managed to force the resignation of the usurper Ariel Henry, imposed by foreign powers.
But the psychological warfare of the media, international NGOs and the relevant United Nations bodies involved does not recognize the revolutionary struggle of the great masses of the country. They focus on the difficult and complex situation in the capital Port-au-Prince, but ignore the large mobilizations that have taken place recently in practically all regions of the country, for example in Saint Marc, Gonaïves, Petit-Goâve, in Cap-Haïtien and Fort-Liberté and Ouanaminthe, in Hinche and in Jeremi. At a regional level, the President of Honduras who holds the pro tempore presidency of CELAC, Xiomara Castro, has had the dignity and independence to recognize reality, when she stated recently, “The current crisis demands a solution led by Haiti that encompasses a broad dialogue between civil society and political actors… under no pretext should we allow military action that violates the Principle of Non-Intervention and Respect for the Self-Determination of Peoples.”
This declaration implicitly recognizes the failure of the previous armed occupation missions and repeated rigged elections organized through the United Nations as a tool of the Western powers. In Haiti, instead of defending the fundamental rights of its people, the UN has acted in the service of the United States and its allies in an unfair and false way, to the detriment of the integrity and coherence of the country’s national political and socio-economic life. In the case of Palestine, the role of the United Nations has been to normalize the illegal Israeli occupation and facilitate a policy of colonial occupation in order to destroy the possibility of national sovereignty for the Palestinian people in an even more extreme way than in the case of Haiti.
The mobilization of the majority Arab population in Palestine to demand their right to independence has been constant for more than a hundred years. The Arab insurrection between 1936 and 1939 was suppressed by more than 40,000 British soldiers along with more than 30,000 police and Jewish militiamen. So when the UN ratified the creation of Israel in 1948, it was the beginning of its role as a tool of the alliance between the Western powers and zionist forces to subjugate and destroy the Palestinian people. The same pattern is seen now, when the United States and its allies are actively arming, supplying and supporting Israel in response to the Palestinian insurrection of October 7th last year.
As in Haiti, the United States and its allies are mounting activities to cover up their crimes. The ignominious theater of dropping totally inadequate amounts of food by parachute to the starving population of Gaza is just one among many examples of the cynical bad faith of the United States and its allies. In reality, the Western powers support the blockade over land of thousands of trucks with enough food and sanitary supplies to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that its population of more than two million people is facing. In the same way, Western governments and media suppress the reality of the massive mobilizations in Haiti in favor of a sovereign resolution of its national destiny, free of foreign intervention.
In relation to Palestine, President Comandante Daniel Ortega has been clear that “…without the weapons of the United States, without the Yankee ships there, the munitions of the United States, Israel simply would not be committing the crimes it is committing. Those responsible for these crimes are the US government and the European governments that have joined in this brutal and cowardly aggression.” In the end, the crises in Palestine and Haiti are examples of what President Vladimir Putin, in a recent interview, characterized thus “..the desire to freeze the current state, the unjust state of affairs in international affairs, is very strong in the Western elites; they have been used to filling their stomachs with human flesh and their pockets with money for centuries. But they must realize that their “vampire dance” is now coming to an end.”
Source: Tortilla con Sal