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CALL TO MOBILIZE June 1 – October 15, 2014 – END THE OCCUPATION OF HAITI NOW!

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HAITI – 10 YEARS OF OCCUPATION – ENOUGH !

Withdraw troops NOW and END the MINUSTAH !

The MINUSTAH is not a humanitarian mission. It is a military occupation of Haiti, installed June 1, 2004, by the UN Security Council, in the wake of the first coup consummated by the U.S. in this new millennium, against a constitutionally elected government in our America.

Under the pretext of stabilizing the country, the real goal of the MINUSTAH is to prevent the Haitian people from exercising their sovereignty and self-determination. It also serves to test new forms of imperialist intervention and social control such as those later applied in the coups in Honduras and Paraguay, for example, or in the slums and against protests in Brazil.

The results in Haiti? After 10 years of occupation, the country is in a state of serious political and institutional crisis, with a clear democratic regression, the systematic and violent repression of popular demonstrations, and persecution, imprisonment, and targeted killings of opposition leaders. The MINUSTAH also supports a gross manipulation of electoral and institutional processes, and the free entry of transnational capital to control strategic areas of the economy, including mega open-pit mining, luxury tourism, maquila, and agribusiness.

The U.S., France, and Canada head-up the MINUSTAH’s intelligence and strategic planning. The only novelty – and the most unacceptable – is that they left Brazil to command the troops who are drawn mostly from our own America: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, El Salvador, Honduras.

10 years of occupation, Enough!

It is now more than evident that the political-military occupation of Haiti is not, and cannot be, a way to generate either stability or an institutionality based on the rights and bien vivir of the Haitian people. Haiti’s Senate has twice requested the withdrawal of the troops. Recent surveys indicate that 89 % of the population rejects the MINUSTAH presence, and the wave of massive demonstrations that has been growing since October, 2013, demanding the president´s resignation, always raise high the demand to end the occupation.

Haitian popular organizations denounce the MINUSTAH’s action to suppress social protest. They denounce that the troops have raped women and youth, prostituted children in exchange for food, usurped schools and other resources needed by the people, contaminated the water and introduced the cholera epidemic that as of the end of April, had killed 8556 people and sickened another 702,000. The resources available to combat cholera are only enough to cover 8% of the 45,000 people that are projected to get sick this year.

The MINUSTAH also operates with aberrant impunity, ensured by the UN itself and the intervention and control over the much-touted electoral processes, led as usual by the U.S. government. The former OAS representative in Haiti has publicly denounced the atrocious manipulation of the 2010/11 elections in order to ensure a president docile to Washington’s interests, responsible now for the rehabilitation of political and paramilitary forces close to the Duvalier clientel.

Nonetheless, in late March the Security Council met in New York to start considering how to prolong the occupation. The MINUSTAH must end now! Those responsible should be held accountable to justice for the crimes committed and reparations made to the Haitian people.

We therefore call on the peoples of our America and popular movements and organizations around the world, to join us in building a strong campaign.

We call to mobilize for the immediate withdrawal of all the troops occupying Haiti and an end to the MINUSTAH. The Haitian people need our solidarity, not troops.

We call to mobilize to end the impunity of the troops, calling on the UN to acknowledge its responsibility for the crimes committed and ensure justice and reparation of the victims, their families and communities.

We call to mobilize in support of the Haitian people in their persistent struggle to exercise their sovereignty and self-determination: the first people in the world to end slavery and declare the universal rights of all men and women; the first people of our America to win their independence from colonial rule and offer support to other emancipation struggles in the region.

We call to mobilize a campaign of awareness and common action between June 1st and October 15 – the date by when the Security Council will vote again to continue – or not – the MINUSTAH occupation. In each of our countries and before key arenas of regional integration, Haiti needs our voice to be heard:

HAITI – 10 YEARS OF OCCUPATION – ENOUGH !

Withdraw troops NOW and end the MINUSTAH !

-Latin America and the Caribbean, June 1, 2014

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