 Okay, everyone. Here we go. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti, America's team, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, excuse me, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast 4.30 p.m. Pacific 7.30 p.m. Eastern right here on YouTube Live, including channels for the ConvoCouch, Code Pink, and popular resistance. Post-broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, radindemedia.com, and now under podcast at popularresistance.org. Today's episode, 219 years of Haitian independence, a history of the first revolution in the Americas. I'm really, really excited all of you to meet three of my friends that I have worked with for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'd like you to meet my three friends from the Haiti Action Committee. We have Pierre LaBosier, Judith Mercuson, and Seth Donnelly, who I'm excited joined us. I wasn't sure we were going to see you today, Seth. Pierre is actually the founder of the Haiti Action Committee. He was born in Haiti. He is a veteran labor and human rights activist. And as I said, he's the co-founder of Haiti Action Committee, and he's also a board member of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Judith's work, she is part of the Haiti Action Committee as well. And her work focuses on women in Haiti organizing and overcoming sexual violence, the impact of the United Nations and militarism, as well as U.S. interventionism. And Seth is a teacher in, actually, you're on sabbatical, I think this year, correct, Seth? And he is with the Haiti Action Committee as well. And some of you may know Seth and I actually met in Port-au-Prince a number of years ago. I actually think it was like spring of 2016. Seth was on the last day or two of your delegation that you were leading. And I think I was just starting mine, which Pierre, you helped us organize. So a lot of friendship and years of solidarity work here to share with the audience today. So it's really, it's always fun for me to have friends and activists join the program. So also, I should mention for the audience that Seth and Merck wrote a really fabulous report and I will include this in the program notes. The two of you wrote a human rights report on the 2018 Lasalline massacre. Am I correct? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll share the link to that report for the audience. So before we start this terrific conversation and really important conversation, I just want to tell the audience really to me and to the guests, of course, Haiti is the most important for those of us who do Latin America and Caribbean solidarity work. It's the most important country in the hemisphere. It was the first to thwart slavery and colonialism. And I think all four of us would share with you. We do not talk about Haiti enough. We should be talking about Haiti more, more, more, more, more. Which is why we are talking with you today in this episode. We were so certain that the news this week would be focused on the Cuban Revolution and the fabulous news of Lula's inauguration, excuse me, inauguration in Brazil. But we really want to talk about Haiti too because January 1st was the 219th anniversary of Haitian independence. And let me just give you a really quick, a little quick history. So on January 1st, 1804, Haiti became an independent republic following the revolution, which had begun 13 years earlier as a rebellion of enslaved people against slavery and French colonialism. Previously known as Saint Dominique, it was the most profitable colony in the world, generating greater revenue than all of the continental North American colonies combined. This immense wealth was generated by the sweat and blood of enslaved Africans who were being worked to death in their tens of thousands on coffee and sugar plantations. So with that, I'll ask the rest of you to join the conversation. Maybe we should talk Pierre since you were born and raised in Haiti. Maybe you can give us just a brief history of the revolution. And then I think it's probably for all of us to share with the audience really, in 219 years, how very little Haiti has been allowed, and I use the word allowed because of international and colonial pressures still existing to this day. Yes, thank you so much, Thel. You're a real pleasure to be on your show as usual. Yeah, this is the 219th anniversary of the revolution. And on the first stage of it was political independence, physical independence from France. And on that date, people named the land Haiti, which is the original name of the Arauats, but also in the African language, one of the African languages it means do not obey. And I'd like to point out that this was a upon Africanist revolution in the sense that you had people from different parts of Africa brought together and slave together, who was up together and fought against slavery. They could have named the island, could have Congo. They could have named the Dahomei or Angola, since many of them were from the various regions, but they chose to honor the original people, Haiti, and also because the name means also not to obey in one of the languages. So Haiti declared itself independent on independent nation. And I want to point out that in the struggle for independence and among the leaders, the revolution that you mentioned was launched initially by Bookman Dottie and a woman Cecil Fatima. They were the two co-leaders of that movement. And in the struggle for independence, many times the women are not given enough representation given their world in the struggle, not only as leaders, but also on the front lines as food soldiers in the struggle. So Cecil Fatima was once a need-beller and so many others who were really wonderful people in charge of this on struggling during that struggle. So Haiti upon its founding, declared itself a sanctuary nation. And I know Merck is going to talk about the whole issue with refugees and what have you. Haiti declared itself a sanctuary nation and called upon people of indigenous origins and people of African descent. Whenever they escaped from slavery or touch Haitian soil, they would become Haitian citizens and Haiti would fight for their freedom. I want to close briefly by saying that not only did Haiti declare itself a sanctuary nation, but Haiti also made it as part of its DNA, expressive solidarity with people struggling for freedom in independence and against slavery. In that respect, Simon Bolivar came to Haiti seeking assistant Miranda before him later on Simon Bolivar and Haitians provided him with shelter. They provided him with weapons, ammunition and many Haitians who were veterans of the war against Spain, Britain and France. Because during those 13 years, the enslaved Africans had to fight against all of those big powers in order to become independent and abolish slavery. So they went back with Bolivar at least on two occasions where he successfully was able to defeat Spanish colonialism. When he asked how should he repay Haiti and the Haitian president had told him at the time and the Haitian people had told him all you have to do is to abolish slavery. This is our only condition for payment. So I'll stop right there. Can I, I think that people don't realize like we think, oh, in those times people didn't have very much communication compared to now actually the Haitian revolution people on the Atlantic coast in particular throughout the Americas and certainly in what became the US were completely inspired. There was great communication in all that period. And they were greatly inspired by the example of the Haitian people. And it was a beacon really, a beacon of hope and determination for all the peoples of the Americas and certainly for the enslaved people in the US. The other thing that I think that we should say is two things. One, that they were punished Haitians as is often the case, they were punished for actually declaring their own freedom. And the port of Haiti was blocked, embargoed by the French, by Napoleon supported by Thomas Jefferson. And then they had to pay back. They had to pay back the people who had enslaved them which I'm sure people will talk about but was basically the equivalent of $22 billion that impoverished Haiti until the 20th century. And one of the reasons that often people say, oh, Haiti, it's so poor, it was made poor, it was intervened and it goes all the way back to that. And the other thing I think that people don't realize is the Haitian revolution helped create the United States because France was so impoverished that they had to sell the Louisiana Purchase and to Thomas Jefferson. And that of course doubled the size of the US and led to American expansion. So all of that, the history of Haiti and the history of the United States are completely intertwined and remain so to this day. You know, I think this is really fascinating for the audience to remind all of us that the Haitian revolution did lead to the Louisiana Purchase and to the doubling of the US at that time. This and Pierre, you mentioned Simone Bolivar and how Haiti financed his army twice to defeat Spain in South America or what the countries were, what are they today? Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Panama. He saw what was happening to the north of the continent. He saw what was happening, what the US was doing, the expansion of the US and he was very, very much concerned about that. And I think that's a really, you know, all of that just ties all the history of the Americas and Latin America, North America and the Caribbean together. All was unfolding at the same time but he was so keen on warning, you know, South America specifically about the US expansion and what it could mean, what it actually has turned out to mean for them. If I may say, if I may add real quick, I know Seth would be, if I may add real quick that the whole idea of Pan-Americanism was not on the Bolivar's idea but it was also Alexandre Pétion, the Haitian president. On the two of them had seen that and had long discussions because Bolivar spent a long time in Haiti and Alexandre Pétion was a good friend of his and they talked about Pan-Americanism and it's unfortunate that the US back then exercised so much pressure on the countries of South America that had become newly independent, including Bolivar, that to their shame, they disinvited Haiti at the first conference of the Pan-American Conference. So Haiti, who was a partner in this whole, in the idea of coming together to fight against colonialism was excluded because the US wouldn't sit down with a country of former slaves of black people basically. So I just wanted to interject this. Yeah, I mean, that was what could be what we often talk as the first summit of the Americas. Precisely. Yeah. And Haiti was disinvited after funding in a single Bolivar twice. So, yeah. This is not pretty, it's very difficult. Terry, just to jump in on that, I was gonna add to Merck's point about the debt that the French extorted with US backing. As I'm sure many of your viewers and listeners know, in the, under President Woodrow Wilson, in the early 20th century, the US directly invaded Haiti and occupied and took over the debt collection directly. And actually during that occupation, they moved Haiti's gold reserves into the US. Citibank, I think Citibank got involved in the debt collection. And the debt, the extortion of the funds from Haiti was going all the way up into the 1940s, you know. And during that brutal occupation from 1918 to 1933, that Woodrow Wilson started and then continued all the way into FDR, they pressured Haiti to rewrite its constitution to open up for foreign ownership of resources. So we see that throughout this history, the colonial powers, particularly first France, but then particularly the United States have put their foot on the neck of the Haitian people so that the people cannot even manage, collectively manage their own resources for their own development. And that's exactly part of the struggle today, of course. All over, all over the world, particularly in the global South and the four of us specifically see it in Latin America and the Caribbean. And it was, you mentioned the debt. Let me just read this for the audience. In 1825, France finally agreed to recognize Haiti's independence, provided it compensates former enslavers to the tune of 150 million gold funds, 21 billion today. A ransom which deeply impoverished the government and was not fully repaid until 1947. Yeah. Which you mentioned, Seth, into the 1940s. I mean, how do you develop a nation? And as people, when you have, like you said, when you have that, you know, boot on your neck, that... And when the people have exercised their self-determination in, let me put it this way, when they've been able to translate their struggle for self-determination into an electoral victory, which was in 1990 with President Aristide. And then there, of course, US moves in with the coup in 1991 and installs a military dictatorship. And then again, the same thing happens in 2000. Aristide is able to be reelected in an overwhelming landslide by the poor majority. And one of his things around the bicentennial, because that was the 200th anniversary of 2004 approaching, was to tell the French, you have to pay back. And then in 2004, there's the second coup executed by the United States, France and Canada. And military troops, Pierre, military troops were sent, like in the early 1900s by the US, is that, am I... That's correct. And thinking that, yeah. Yeah, in 1915, the US came in and there was a... People won the march there and there was a movement to change the system. There were present armies that were in an uprising and several patient presidents were being replaced one after another. And the people were on the verge of that, that's when the US troops came in. And during that period of 19 year of direct US forces occupying Haiti, close to over 20,000 Haitians were massacred. There was the use of aerial bombing against Haitians and against the Haitian peasantry. And also that's when we first saw the first massive flight out of Haiti of Haitian refugees from that period as a result of this war and intervention. And I know Merck has been on the border. So that ties in very well with what she has seen today. That flight has not stopped. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about your recent trip to the border because that's a really nice way to segue to current day and to help everyone understand that despite liberating itself, nothing has really fundamentally changed for Haiti or nothing has been allowed to change is probably the better. The Haitians changed things for themselves. They haven't been allowed to see the fall. Well, I think we have to step back a minute because I think probably people have heard how horrible or how desperate the situation in Haiti is right now and that the country basically civil society has completely fallen apart. There is no government. The government that exists with Ariel Henri is he is not an elected official. He has been appointed by the United States and Britain and Canada. And he quite recently, in fact, I think in the last week, Pierre, he's declared that there's gonna be an electoral commission that he appoints himself that the broad sectors of Haitian society have rejected and the U.S. has said that he can stay in until 2024. At the same time, the U.S. and Haitian elite have weaponized gangs and there's mass violence in Haiti and nothing is quite functioning. And so all of this is leading to the threat of yet another intervention. And I know people have- It's almost like it's being orchestrated. Yeah. Absolutely. That's, it feels like that, you know, a lot. And what this has resulted in is a mass, massive immigration from Haiti and a refugee crisis. This is not just a migrant crisis. This is a refugee crisis. But at the same time, and perhaps people saw a year ago those horrific images of border guards on horseback, whipping Haitian refugees. And so they, they cooled that. But at the same time, in the last year or so, 30,000 of Haitian refugees have been deported and flown back to Haiti to this horrible situation. And that's in the United States. They're also deporting thousands. I think it's in the fall. 15,000 and Pierre and Seth can talk about this more were deported from the Dominican Republic back to Haiti. And so Haiti people's situation is, it's not livable. And so today, actually, the Biden made a speech saying that there's gonna be a new immigration plan for Haiti. And it's interesting that they lumped Haiti in this, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba that no longer are people gonna be allowed to have just come to the border and have asylum. The ironic situation is that in order to like even be processed for asylum these days, you have to enter the country illegally. So you have to, it's completely nuts. So patients have to go and risk their lives either on over land through Panama or through Columbia to Panama and up through Mexico or over that today, I think it was 150 came to the Florida Keys. So either you have to risk your lives. And when you were talking about Haitians, half of the people that we're talking about are children and of those half of those are under five years old or you can't come. And now they're saying, well, that's not gonna work. So therefore you have to apply in your own country. You can't apply in Mexico. You have to apply in your own country on your cell phone and you have to get a security clearance and you have to have money and all that. And maybe, maybe they will give you asylum. They're gonna allow 30,000 people from all these countries per month. So that's gonna be 30,000 people with money. Yeah. I mean, that's a certain economic class that has a cell phone who actually has a paid account that's operable and can act, yeah. Yeah. That's an economic definition right there. Yeah, you're supposed to fly on a plane. And you know, in order to like even come, I mean, our experience at the border was seeing all these people who had paid thousands and thousands of dollars to cartels to even be brought here. I mean, the situation is so inhumane and disgusting that it's something that we really have to pay more attention to. You know, I will say also, just having spent so much time in Mexico the past year, particularly since February of 2022, what you are describing, Merck, is completely antithetical to the treatment of the white Christian Western Europeans fleeing Ukraine. Fleeing Ukraine, completely different treatment. Precisely. And people in Haiti are not only in Haiti, but throughout the world are very aware of that. The blatant racism, not only of what happened on the border, but how Biden as president of the US flew to Poland, I believe last year to kiss little babies from Ukraine to wall out the red carpet for Ukrainians which is the way refugees should be treated. But this treatment of people as human beings is being denied to black folks and to people of color. And so, you know, to Haitians and people of color. And this is the number of Africans. And when you will look at US foreign policy as created, not only in Haiti, but in these other countries, a hellish situation for the population there. Merck mentioned earlier about the weaponization, the weapons that are flooding into Haiti coming from the United States. And the US, there is a great deal of control over these weapons coming into Haiti to weaponization society and to really wage a war against the people of Haiti in order to make them leave their land, in order to take their resources. And this is what's going on. I know, you know, people don't wanna leave their own country. People like, I think often people go, all of these places, they're such a mess, they're coming to the US for a better life, which they are, how ironic, because these are countries that are intervened. They are made poor, their situation is made poor. And it's really important that we tie when we look at the situation of the border that we tie the two things together, that we tie foreign policy and US intervention is the other side of how they're treating the people when they come here. And also, it's bipartisan. It's the Democrats and the Republicans. And we see that in the, you know, like you mentioned, you know, in terms of the deportations, Merck was talking about and expanding the use of Title 42, which they announced today too, right? That they're just gonna randomly, they didn't have to give a reason. But the other thing that the Biden and the Democrats have done is they've dramatically increased US funding for the Haitian police above the levels even under Trump. Trump had droopled it, but then Biden took it further. For example, last year, they put 48 million taxpayer dollars into bolstering the Haitian SWAT capability of the police. And so it's, you know, when you look at weapons, you look at training, you look at, and the police are demonstrably linked through massive evidence to the paramilitaries and to the gangs. There's no, there's zero doubt that like the killings, the extrajudicial killings, the massacres are linked to the police in case after case, such as the Los Aline massacre. So it is by design. The United States is making life hell in Haiti and then they are ratcheting up the inhumanity at the border. And this goes to the history too. When you look at it, I know that there have been several exposés of this. For example, the infamously known, Tonto-Marco's, you know, of the Duvalier era, they were trained by US military missions of Haiti. Trained, finance supported the Duvalier dictatorship, both Papa Doc and Baby Doc, finance supported by the... So what we are witnessing right now is a repeat, a rehashing on the FRAP organization that succeeded the Tonto-Marco's. Basically the same thing paramilitary, very brutal, people who use mass rape as a weapon against Haitian women and against the society in general to create a reign of terror against women in the society and the society in general. So what we are saying is the people's movement of Haiti have managed to stop this with President Aristida as president when he came back, but now we've had a coalition of countries like the US, France, Canada, what they call the core group of countries. They used to call themselves Friends of Haiti. They are a group of nine countries and also international organizations. Brazil is part of it too. And they have pulled themselves together and they decide everything that goes on on a daily basis in Haiti and all this reign of terror, Haitians attributed to them and people in Haiti calls them the core gang, not the core group, because they say they are the biggest, the leadership of the gangs that are making life so hellish for the Haitian people. Yeah, so it's like they make life completely miserable and then they say, life is totally miserable. And the head of the UN today said, Haiti is on the brink of an abyss, so therefore we have to intervene. And you know, the two... There's the human rights argument. Yeah, we have to recreate the human rights crisis gonna go in and be the people who rescue them. And it's interesting that you talked about the first Pan-American meeting because it's so contradictory. This week we, or last week we did see Lula gain the presidency in Brazil. But yet Lula was one... Brazil was the head actor when the UN intervened after the 2004 coup and had a brutal occupation under UN occupation, which hasn't completely ended and now it's threatening to go back again. So I think that we have to be... We have to really be cognizant of these contradictions and the use of Haiti as sort of this when everybody can't get along with the US, then they use Haiti as sort of a bargaining chip and say, okay, if you'll intervene in Haiti, we'll leave you alone about this. And it has been countries in Latin America that have actually agreed to that. And Terry, real quick, I would not be happy with myself if I don't strongly denounce Lula as I'm denouncing Bush, as I'm denouncing Biden because Lula as head of Brazil, he was very aware of the atrocities that were being committed by the troops as head of the United Nations forces. Haiti has been under UN occupation ever since the 2004 coup, which the French, the Canadians and the US initiated, organized, initiated and created a lot of paramilitary death squads to kill the Haitian people. This is continuing to this day. The occupation has been uninterrupted and so for them to pretend now as Merck said that they are going to come and restore and do this and now they are the ones who are managing this entire operation and trying to fool people. So I strongly denounced Lula because at the time people thought that socialist Lula that something good could have come out of him being the head of the United Nations forces but very quickly he showed these two colors by being, by conducting so many massacres in Haiti under their command. So whenever I hear people praising him, I'm in support of the people of Brazil and people in Brazil were outraged when they found out a lot of people but the information has been suppressed. So I strongly do denounce Lula for having the blood of the Haitian people on his hand. And the Brazilians were in, they were in the military command of the occupation. Yeah, so yeah. This is why I've really so wanted all of you to join the program this week because this week is so important historically, right? We have the celebrating the Cuban revolution, we're celebrating the reelection of Lula and his inauguration and somehow we fail to talk about Haiti and its Independence Day being January 1st, 1804 and all these historical events and threads that are playing out. And it's not as pretty as we all wanna think despite what we believe is on, what we believe we're seeing unfold throughout the hemisphere with center left to radical left government. Pierre, why are you talking about Brazil and Lula? What's happening with Mexico and Lopez overdore because he also has just recently agreed to support US interventionism in Haiti. Definitely, very much of a big disappointment. But I'll have to say this, I'll have to, let me give a powerful example of what solidarity is. The Cubans, for example, have been, it's been a different case with them the way they treat Haitian refugees with dignity. And that has been historical ever since the Cuban revolution. Cuba has been really treating Haitians, both the Haitians who were in Cuba and those who were refugees who happened to stop by Cuba they've been treating them with the kind of respect and dignity that is correct. And the Haitian people do not forget that. When the coup took place, only Cuba and Venezuela had refused to join the UN forces, when many of those so-called socialist countries of South America, of the Americas were actually flirting to join that and be part with the US in this venture. And so I wanted to raise that. So Lopez Obrador to me is following the same kind of racist attitude doing the bidding of the US in terms of it's really denying the Haitian people right to their sovereignty. It's as if Haitian lives do not matter. Not it's as if to them Haitian lives do not matter. So it's an expression of racism. It's an expression of showing the US that I can be as tough as you are. I can follow your dictates and I can treat we have no love laws for these Haitian people. So that's what's going on. You know, next week, they're calling it the three amigos, which is so problematic, you know. It's actually gonna be our episode next week. Yeah, you know, Biden is meeting with Trudeau and Prime Minister in Mexico. And... I'm Lopez Obrador, Trudeau and Biden. Right, right, Lopez Obrador. And so they've made these agreements and certainly this latest immigration policy, which I think is so interesting that they lump Haiti with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which they don't have diplomatic relations and yet Haiti is in there too. They made this agreement with Mexico in mind. And there are thousands of Haitians now on the border in camps in Reynoso, which is opposite I think it's Camp McCallum in Texas and there are also hundreds in Tijuana and there are Haitians coming through the border at every juncture. So this is all completely agreed upon between Mexico and the United States and Canada has always played a role in terms of what's going on in... So what has happened or what's the foreign policy narrative, quote unquote, coming out of Washington, DC to have Haiti as she's lumped in with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which it's called the... I don't know, what do they call it? The Troika Terany is what the US refers to those three countries. Why are, what's happening? What's happening? Is there something specific happening in Haiti foreign policy-wise or trade-wise? Have they, are they buying oil again from Venezuela or what's happening? I don't think there's any kind of serious like lumping in terms of the governments. What's happening is they're just in light of the massive refugee crisis out of Haiti they've lumped Haitians together with some of the immigrants and refugees from these other countries but the US, the Biden administration remains steadfast in supporting the RL on redictatorship which as Merck mentioned has been ruling Henry came to power in July, 2020 after the assassination of President Moise. But... Which we all talked about. What's that? We all talked about that and I will share that episode with the audience because it's some great, it's really some important history as to how Haiti has the government it has today. I mean, it's kind of like meat the new boss in as the old boss. I mean, they're all part of the ruling PhDK, the tech colleagues, skinhead party in Haiti and its function has been to further privatize and open up resources including mining which the Canadians are very involved in as well as to wage war on the poor and dispossess the poor and wage war in particular on the mass lava loss movement. So the Biden administration is steadfast in supporting and they play out this fiction that this current government can somehow organize elections in the future which the people on the ground in Haiti know is a farce that this government can't be trusted whatsoever. But it's another US appointed government. Yeah. Precisely. And this falls within the same pattern of what we had seen. You had asked about 1915, the early 1900s and that's what the US had done. It's appoint people, puppets and putting them in. Same thing that it did with the Duvalier regime. The only time that I can say that the Haitian people have themselves chosen with the ballot their own representatives, their own president and leadership was in 1990 during those elections and also in 1995 during the elections of 95 and in 2000 when the Haitian people themselves had used the resources of the country and that used the people, the monies of Haiti and done their own elections. But other than that, it's been always staged, always stuff that have been put together either by the US or using the Haitian military that was directly funded by the United States and controlled even the elections of Papadog Duvalier that was also an imposition on the Haitian people. So, and that's why they was quickly moved in with coup d'etats to what the Haitian people, their choices, which was president Aristide and many of the local representatives of the family-level as political organization. So, go ahead. One thing I think is really important because sometimes it becomes very confusing about what should happen and about how people use the issue of humanitarian crisis and how people use the issue of human rights. And the first thing is, as you said, Terry the progressive people in the United States do not pay enough attention to Haiti, you know? And here's a black country and people are saying black lives matter and it has to also be about Haiti. They don't pay attention. And then many people get confused and they say, well, it is a humanitarian crisis shouldn't the United Nations go in? And I think that we have to be very clear that the United Nations in this instance is an imperialist power. And, you know, just because people wear blue hats doesn't mean that they're peacekeepers. Like armed peacekeepers, it's an oxymoron, you know? And the UN occupations in Haiti have been brutal and have caused cholera, rape and mass violence. And so Haitian people have to, you know they have to deal with the situation themselves. Sometimes the US has created and it's like the US creates complete mass chaos, violence, instability, and then says we have to solve it. But actually in country after country people have said this is our problem, we have to solve it ourselves. And I think the Haitian people have been very clear. Yes, it's a mess, but we have to get ourselves out of this mess and we can. And get all the foreign intervention pools out of there, institutions, tools, people that, yeah. Yeah, and the movement today in Haiti is to complete the promise of the Haitian revolution. The initial, the revolution of 200 that gave rise to Haiti 219 years ago. It was also a dream of our ancestors not only to break their chains, the chains of slavery and to end colonialism, but it was to free the land, meaning that so that the people of Haiti would own the land and its resources and create a better life for themselves and their children and their posterity. So what we are seeing is that this idea, this goal, these goals have never left the Haitian people. And that's what's fueling the movement in Haiti. You talk to any kid on the street. And I say kid in terms of their age group, you have little children, 12 years old, who take to the streets demanding education. You have elderly folks demanding the right to have to eat, the right to have shelter, housing, health care, food to eat and all clean drinking water. And this is something that the people are fighting for. For example, wages, decent, liveable wages. And so people are in the streets all the time mobilizing, demanding their rights. And so this is the movement that when it came to power with President Aristide at its head was actually changing, beginning to change the structures of the society. The economic structures were being changed. And so that's why the US came in 2004, came before that in 1991 and again in 2004 to stop that process. And so in that respect, the war against the Haitian people is to destroy that resistance that's been going on since the time of 2,219 years ago when the people first created the nation of Haiti. And today they are determined to continue in that life to create a nation that is based on laws and on equality of our people. Wow. You know, I'm listening to you Pierre. I always, I always love listening to you speak, especially since your activism was so powerful. All three of you were active and it was so powerful. Here, I will share with you and the audience, you know, you're really, you are one of the few Haitians, born and raised Haitians that I know. And so I'm always just so such an open, you know, mind and heart to hear you speak. And I'm listening to you. I really, there's everything that you're talking about today is everything the Haitian people fought for and believed they won on January 1st, 1804. And you're still fighting as a people. You're still fighting for exactly the same things that you thought had been accomplished in 1804. And that's why I keep saying throughout our conversation that, you know, you're just, the Haitian people are not being allowed. It's not just Haiti, but Haiti is probably the prime example in the hemisphere of not being allowed to exercise the freedoms, the liberty, the independence that you won on January 1st, 1804. And I would think that that reflected, more than anything that reflects the failure of, inside of North America, inside of the US, of the movements here to really, you know, dismantle things the way they should have been, you know, and obviously there's been hard repression that the US government has used against many of those movements, like through Cointel Pro. So it's not to blame people who were the victims of repression inside of North America. But as a whole, inside of the United States, we still need our own homegrown lava loss to really take down the capacity of the United States to constantly hold human rights hostage in Haiti and everywhere else. One of the things that they have done, and when I said there, I mean, the various right-wing forces, it's to prevent the history from being shared. One of the things about the Haitian Revolution, and I have to say, I have to praise the Polish troops, who at the time when Napoleon had conscripted them and sent them over to fight against freedom, the movement for freedom in Haiti, once they realized what was happening, they defected from the French army of Napoleon and joined the Africans. And among them, there were Germans as well who defected from the troops of Napoleon when they found out that they were trying to restore slavery and they joined the Africans. And to this day, their descendants live in Haiti and in various regions of Haiti, the descendants of the Polish and the Germans who had defected and joined the revolution. So you see the Haitian Revolution was not only pan-Africanist, it was a humanist revolution. So these examples of the power of people uniting together against a system that's imposed upon us by a few greedy folks to create misery all over the world, that has to be, they don't want, those forces don't want people to know that true stories. And so this is a result of this constant demonization of Haiti, the dehumanization of the Haitian people. And to marginalize the Haitian Revolution to such an extent that even people who are very progressive minded, people who call themselves communist and what have you, do not feel the kind of connections with Haiti that normally they should be feeling because simply of the truth, the reality of what the Haitian Revolution has been about and the struggle of the Haitian people continues to be about. And I think also because the Haitian Revolution is very homegrown and doesn't look the way people are traditionally looking at what progressive movement should be or socialist movements should be. And so it's discounted. And I think that's very dangerous. And each country has, as I said before, each country has to determine their own destiny and their own model. And certainly one of the things I think that people realize when they go to Haiti is that Haitians are the most politicized people and they know very well, they can determine very well what their future can be if allowed to do so. And that's true in countries around the world and the US absolutely is opposed to that. And look at what Biden is doing in the embargo in Cuba. Cubans are coming because he's making life absolutely impossible and that's what's happening in all these countries, they're making lives impossible. And we have to stand up against that and we have to really support the self-determination in Haiti and around the world. And I think that's our great obligation especially as Americans. You know, you said something about letting nations decide what they want for themselves. And I will say, and the audience knows this, and the three of you know it as well, between October of 2020 and May of 2022, I was an international election observer throughout the Americas. There were legislative elections, there were presidential elections, regional elections all over the Americas in that 14, and then after May of 2022, Colombia and Brazil as well. And I will say what I saw in Merck, you're so reflecting what I saw in eight different countries, people voting for national sovereignty, natural resource sovereignty, and governments that were proposing an economic plan that would be beneficial to the majority of citizens. And you know, in some cases it's one step to the left of center or social Democrat and in other cases it's revolutionary left solutions but everything definitely, the majority moved at you know, the left of center. And it's national sovereignty, natural resource sovereignty and an economic plan benefiting the majority. And this is what Haiti's has fought and won since 1804. The example, Haiti's the example for everything that's beginning to unfold. It's example in both directions, right? Yeah. Yeah. Resist this in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that the movement in Haiti is appealing for is solidarity because we know that we can't do this alone. And the big powers, they all work together in coalition features. They call themselves coalition of the willing or this coalition or that coalition. Right now. The international community. Linda. Quote on quote. All friends of Haiti or the core group, they all join forces together. And the more we can, the Haitian people, they want the stories to be told. They want people to know truly what is the nature of the struggle in Haiti so that people can link up with them in solidarity. One by putting pressure on their respective governments, people in the US, people in Canada putting pressure on the US and the Canadian government. Just like the people in Brazil had put pressure on Lula when they realized what was going on in Haiti at the time and the world that Lula was playing in the name of the Brazilian people against the Haitian people. So it's that kind of solidarity that is needed. The other thing is that there are good examples of organizing at the grassroots level. People are building a new Haiti. People are building institutions, schools, local clinics, universities and that people are building in Haiti. And so these needs to be supported as well to because the monies of the UN, which is really our tax money, the tax money we gave that people of the world provide actually goes to the UN and they are funding a minority, a ruling, they call themselves an elite, but a ruling, greedy class of folks who are exploiting the people. So we need to change that whole structure where our hard-earned money, tax money is being used to press and repress people in Haiti and in other countries as well. So those are some of the things that come to mind. But the only way people can do that is by knowing the facts, knowing the reality, breaking through this curtain of lies that hide what's going on there and misrepresent the people of Haiti as if we're incapable or we are black people, we can't do things on our own, that kind of line, racist line that they are putting out there. So Pierre in our closing minutes, why don't you, well, all three of you share with the audience, Haiti Action Committee, what you do and what the audience can do to help your work, support your work and help raise awareness on Haiti. Seth, Mark, you all are wonderful. Go ahead. Go ahead, Seth. Okay, well, a lot of our work is to, as you know so well, is to, through a series of popular education events in the larger community, pre-COVID, we would have a lot of in-person teachings since COVID, obviously webinars, but we used to, we've published a lot of literature to get out because the mainstream media obviously doesn't cover it. We organize street-level demonstrations. We've done many of those against the deportations, against the Biden administration's support for the dictatorship. Those have been some of the most recent ones. I think it's an organization that Pierre and Robert Roth co-founded way back in, I think it was 1991, right, Pierre? Is it, yeah. What makes Haiti Action particularly so unique is that it's got such strong ties, especially through Pierre, but also with Robert, with the mass movement on the ground and with the Law of the Lost Movement, there's a strong sense of the popular organizations. And so a lot of our webinars and our teachings directly incorporates these incredible activists and leaders inside of Haiti. We also try to raise, steer people who do want to make donations to Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, which is kind of like, well, it's not kind of it is, it's a nonprofit that is able to take donations and then get 100% of the donations to the grassroots movement in Haiti and to grassroots institutions like clinics and schools, et cetera. Whereas a lot of the major NGOs obviously they take money, they have a big markup and then the funds don't actually reach the people on the ground in Haiti. So HIRF, we always encourage people to check out HIRF. Haiti Action Committee, we always encourage people to go to HIRF to make donations as well, because that kind of tangible concrete support should never be underestimated. I think one of the ways that we support Haiti is that we support the University of the Aristide Foundation, UNIFA, and which has built this incredible hospital and university graduating thousands of doctors, nurses, engineers, physical therapists, dentists, like from the people. And this is a really great accomplishment in this past period when Aristide came back from exile and he came back because the Haitian people demanded it. He said he was gonna put his energy into education and they actually have built this amazing institution. And so people should go to Haiti, www.hadesolidarity.net and HaitiEmergencyRelief.org to get more information. And I think what Pierre said about finding out the truth and in other work that I do, we talk about historical denialism. And Haiti is a really good example of denying history and denying the relationship of Haiti to the United States. And I think we're really, for people who are watching, we're really obligated to like sift through all the lies and understand the relationship of Haiti and to get completely rid of this notion, oh, Haiti, it's so poor, it can't take a break. What's the problem? And to look and see the problem is actually US colonialism and imperialism from all these Western powers. And we really, I would just emphasize, we cannot call on the United Nations to bail Haiti out or the United States. We have to allow, we have to be very clear of no intervention. And that's especially true now. And we also have to be very clear that if the United States and other countries create a situation then we are obligated to take in refugees and that that's like our moral and ethical responsibility. Pierre, final words? No, I just want to thank you very much, Terri. And I want to say thank you to the people of Code Bank and also others who are members of the audience to thank them for their solidarity because I know many people are in solidarity with the Haitian people. And this conversation as well as others, it is so necessary for people to sift through the lies and it's so important. So I'm echoing what Merck just said and also Seth and you, of course, and your work. Thank you so much. Thank you, Terri, for your work, man. Yeah. We both feel pink. Yeah. I should just say because I, you know, we on November 1, we moved to popular resistance and Code Bank joined us as a broadcast partner. So let me just share with you and also just reiterate to the audience. The audience, a lot of you already know this, but so we are a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region in partnership with and I would extend this invitation to Haiti Action Committee as well. And Pierre, we can talk after to join us as a broadcast partner given our new format. So we broadcast via popular resistance in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and all of your friends over in Marin at Task Force on the Americas. So we're a wonderful, wonderful co, broadcast coalition now. And that is nine of us now broadcasting as a coalition for this project. And a huge shout out to Pia Rella and Craig at the Convo Couch for giving us Thursday nights at 730 p.m. Eastern some space on their channel, which has over 50,000 subscribers. So y'all have a really large audience tonight. Right on. Right on. Thank you. This is great. So, and then we do also broadcast to Code Pink Action on YouTube and popular resistance org on YouTube. So we simulcast to three YouTube channels. So y'all have been seen by a lot of people tonight. Well, we appreciate it, Terry. And, you know, then you can find us on Apple podcast and Spotify. And I will just share with the four of you. And I turn, I think the audience knows this after our live YouTube broadcast. I take the audio and turn it into a podcast and upload that to Apple podcast and Spotify on Friday mornings. Average episode downloads 2017 as of this morning. That's great. Well, since it's going to be a podcast, I just want to reiterate. I want to highlight. Www. Hady solidarity. Net. Www. Hady emergency relief. Org. Wonderful. And I'll put that in the program notes. For you two for the podcast to make sure. So thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. It's always so wonderful to be in conversation with you. I so value your work, your friendship and your time. And I just want to remind the audience will be live next week, 7 30 PM Eastern. On the convo couch, code pink and popular resistance for YouTube channel. Thank you, Terry. Everyone. Thank you. Thank you. All the best.