A new U.S.-backed scheme to impose a puppet government on Haiti is in motion in the aftermath of Ariel Henry’s resignation earlier this week. Officials from the United States, France, and Canada, with governments in the Caribbean and Africa that are dominated by Western interests, are setting up a “transitional presidential council” to constitute a new ruling regime in the country and attempt to suppress any revolutionary potential of the Haitian people. The rule of this hand-picked council would be enforced through the deployment of thousands of police officers sent by governments in the pocket of the U.S. empire.
Ariel Henry has acted as de facto ruler of Haiti since Jovenel Moïse’s assassination and had refused to call any new elections. For nearly a decade, if not longer, there has not been a Haitian head of state with anything resembling a legitimate popular mandate. Since October of 2021, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets nationwide, demanding the resignation of the U.S.-backed Henry and his administration. The resignation of Henry had been a long standing demand of the Haitian people, various opposition parties and organizations in the country because his position had no popular mandate. But his replacement with a puppet council is an attempt to subvert the spirit of this mass movement, which has subsided in intensity in the recent period. Henry’s backers in Washington simply made the calculation that he had become a liability, and chose to move on to their next proxy.
The Haitian people have demanded concrete responses to their needs: resolution to the nation’s food insecurity, rampant inflation, severe fuel shortages and a democratic government. Instead, Haitians have been met with extreme violence and repression. That is why there was no protest from the people when the gangs united to demand Henry not return to the country.
Looming armed intervention
The former prime minister is clearly disposable in a bigger plot of hidden invasion under the guise of “Multinational Security Support” or MSS. As explained in Venezuela Analysis, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2699 on October 2, 2023 authorizing a Multinational Security Support mission that would see armed forces intervene in Haiti “under the pretense of tackling the Caribbean country’s security crisis.” Before his resignation, Henry’s last act of betrayal to Haitian self-determination came in the form of a trip to Kenya where he signed a formal security agreement that would see 1,000 Kenyan police officers deployed to Haiti. Kenya’s anti-worker government is loyal to the interests of western corporations, not the Kenyan people.
This military/police intervention is justified as a necessary measure to save the country from the chaos of gang violence. “Gang violence” is being used just like “bandits” were alleged to be the reason the US had to invade Haiti in 1915. The imperialists are trying to hide the fact that the rise of armed groups in Haiti in the past several years, is a direct result of their own policies that deliberately hollowed out the state. Focusing on “gang violence” also aims to send a message that there are no Haitian solutions to Haitian problems, and that order can only be installed from the outside.
The possibility of another UN/U.S.-backed intervention, whether with Kenyan or any other country’s forces, is strongly rejected by Haitian leftists and solidarity activists as the precursor to a years-long occupation of the country. Travis Ross of Canada-Haiti Information Project, writing for Haiti Liberte nearly six months ago, explained that while the Kenyan security mission’s “purported purpose is to combat gangs, the primary goal is to facilitate a controlled changeover from [unelected interim Haitian Prime Minister Ariel] Henry’s embattled regime to another transitional government also beholden to Washington.”
After the disgraced prime minister Henry resigned from his post on March 11, Irfaan Ali, Guyanese President and Chair of CARICOM, held a press conference in Kingston, Jamaica. Ali put an agenda on the table for a “transitional governance arrangement” in order to enforce the “rule of law”. This strategy did not include real input from the Haitian people, only hand-picked “Haitian stakeholders” and “international development partners” which consisted of representatives from Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico, the United Nations, and the United States. These are many of the same players that have been responsible for the destabilization and repression of Haiti since the nation’s independence. It is clear that this agenda is to install a US/UN-managed, pliable Haitian government that will carry out occupation and not take care of Haiti’s oppressed majority.
The people’s struggle continues
In a statement issued after Henry’s resignation, the Haitian revolutionary organization MOLEGHAF argued that, “Any proposal aiming for a transition under the dominance of American imperialism is a pact with the death of the masses … The conspiracy is rising, and it will end in an election to place their satellites in power under the guise of people’s democracy.” MOLEGHAF stated that the key task at hand is that, “Revolutionary political parties and organizations, in collaboration with the popular masses, must mobilize all their energy for a genuine decomposition and collapse of the capitalist system.”
On March 5th, during a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro spoke out against all efforts to subject Haiti to any further military interventions. Maduro stated “We do not agree with a disguised invasion of any sort … The solution is not another invasion … The solution is for Latin America and the Caribbean, to go and embrace [the country], accompany it, truly help it so that Haiti can take its own path and implement its own model.”
In the face of these plots, the Haitian people and popular organizations have held true to the words of Jean Jacques Dessalines, “Let us swear to fight to the last breath for the independence of our country.” U.S. hands off Haiti!
