 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America, CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. We broadcast every Wednesday, 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. Tonight, an extensive conversation on current events in Haiti. Following days of national strikes last week, tensions run high in Haiti amid new anti-government protests calling for U.S.-backed president, Jovenel Moise, to resign. To discuss the current political situation in Haiti, we are joined by my good friends. I'm so happy to have you back from the San Francisco Bay Area-based Haiti Action Committee. We're joined tonight by Pierre Labossier, Seth Donnelly, and Judith Merkinson. Before we start our conversation, let me give the audience a brief biography of the three of you so they can see how wonderful your work is and how important your work is. So Pierre is a veteran labor and human rights activist. In 1991, he co-founded the Haiti Action Committee in solidarity with the popular movement in Haiti, struggling to restore democracy after the military coup against President Addisly. Pierre is also a board member of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Seth Donnelly is a veteran high school teacher and member of the Haiti Action Committee as well. Since 2004, he has done extensive work in Haiti as part of human rights and educational delegations. In addition to co-authoring the report on the Lasseline Massacre, Seth is also the author of the book The Lie of Global Prosperity, How Neo-Liberals Distort Data to Mask Poverty and Exploitation. His book is recently published by Monthly Review Press. We're also joined this evening by Judith Merkinson. She is a longtime women's and human rights activist. She has spent decades doing international solidarity work and is a co-author of the National Lawyers Guild 2007 report entitled Seeking Answers, Probing Political Persecution, Repression and Human Rights Violations in the Philippines. Her most recent article is entitled, We Are Seeing Ourselves Being Dragged Back Into a Time When Women Were Dehumanized, Sexual Violence as a Tool of Repression in Haiti. So welcome everyone. I want our viewers to see to know that the three of you are wonderful friends and incredibly successful passionate activists regarding Haiti. I'm so pleased that you were able to join us this evening and have this really, really important conversation on current events and Haiti. So what I would like us to do, let's first start with the National Strike. That was two days, three days, I believe last week, early February. And now also this is leading to a much broader anti-government protest attempting to force the current president, Hoba Nalmoyi, to resign. He is a US-backed president. So Pierre, do you want to start us off this evening? Yes, I'm glad you started with the strike. I just wanted to say that way before the strike, teachers, various sectors of the Haitian population have been going on strike. Various protests have been taking place. I have to say that from the, let me back up a bit to go. The roots of the problem is the coup d'etat, the kidnapping coup d'etat of 2004 when President Aristide was kidnapped out of Haiti. And that was the US, France, Canada headed that overthrow of the Haitian democratically elected president. And Haiti was well on its way at that time to have a stable society, a democratic system and what I mean by that is popular participation in the decision making. And soon as the US did that, that started a whole series of subsequent dictatorships, occupation governments that were really dictators on Haiti. And so here we are 17 years later dealing with the consequences and the terrible disastrous consequences of that. So the strike that happened, there were several strikes before that. My teachers were not getting paid by people who were various service workers, health care workers, and various people. And so they did it independently. So there was always this term of taking place. Students won't strike because their teachers were not getting paid and they were not receiving. Their schools were devoid of resources. In the meantime, people could see high government officials really stealing the money, building fancy homes, leaving great lifestyles, very rich lifestyles when everybody knew. And it was scandal after scandal, the Petrocaribe scandals, these are the funds that were being stolen. And as a result, so finally, by last week, there was such a massive things culminated to a point where the unions decided, let's do a general strike. So it was the unions and the population that shut the country down for two days and the whole country participated. The strike was expected everywhere. And following that, constant struggles, constant movement taking place, mobilizations all over the country, and with the brutal repression by the Haitian police and by the Jovenel Moïse government. And that's where we are today. It's fascinating how widespread the strike was nationwide. Shut the country down and yet no news in the United States. I mean, there was such little. And this is, can we just digress for a moment and talk about why Haiti gets so little coverage in the US mainstream media? I would differ to someone else on the planet. Well, I mean, I think part of the reason is that it's a Black Republic. It's the first country in the Americas that freed itself from slavery. And the United States has hated it ever since. And unfortunately, it's not just the media that refuses. I mean, let's face it. We have a media that focuses on things when it wants to and when it doesn't want to. And if they don't want it to, it hasn't happened. And we're also in this area. The country is obsessed with what happens inside the United States. And quite frankly, the movement is also quite obsessed with what happens inside the United States. There isn't very much international solidarity these days, even though people talk about it. And I think that we really have to think when we talk about Black Lives Matter, when we talk about solidarity, we have to talk about Haiti. And it's a blind spot where people really don't discuss it. I mean, even people who talk about Venezuela or Nicaragua or what happened in Honduras somehow don't, don't talk about Haiti. And I do think the root of it is because it's a Black Republic. And also because it doesn't completely respond or correspond to what people think a revolution should look like, because it's really unique. And the model of President Aristide and the La Velaz Party is Haitian, and it's its own. And so I think that we have to respect that as well. And it was also very, very threatening to the United States. The United States has always controlled Haiti for over 100 years. So let's talk about the current government. The current president, Jovenel Moise, is a president by decree. And we've seen national protests pushing for him to resign. Let's talk about the complexion of those protests, why they want him to resign. And then let's talk about how and why he is still in power without elections having happened, because this is really, I think there's very few people viewing the scene that understand how and why he is still in power. But what's driving these anti-government protests now and how widespread it is? What's the complexion of the demographic involved in these protests? Well, I think one of the things, I teach my high school teacher, and one of the things, and we travel to Haiti back and forth pretty regularly until COVID put a stop to it. But one of the things that's really moved my students is a lot of the protests in Haiti are being led by Haitian students and youth. And they are bearing the brunt of horrific repression. There's students when the schools haven't been funded, teachers haven't been paid for years, students have been on the forefront speaking out against not only that, but speaking out against the raw terror. And it's reached a point where a major student activist, Gregory St. Hilaire, a university student, the police went on to campus earlier this fall and he was killed, shot in the back on campus and then denied health care for about four hours, I believe. And we have a photo of him where he's holding a sign saying down with weapons. The US has been funding the police and weaponizing. So that a lot of the faces of movement are these students from popular neighborhoods. And then the people themselves, the poor majority have been out and neighborhoods that are the most active, the most poor and most active have been subjected to the worst massacres like La Saline. And the massacres, the police repression, the police brutality is against anyone that's questioning the government or their specific politics, the government's trying to repress or is it just anyone and everyone who's against the sitting president? One of the things I'd like to say, I want to put Jovenel Moriz in context of the coup d'etat of 2004. It was a coup d'etat against a government that was implementing a people's agenda. So every elected official from the local to all the way to the national level, everyone from city council member all the way to the president, they were all removed from office. Very few were left if they had betrayed they were left in office, but aside from that, all of them. And it was simply and all the initiatives, the community projects, everything was attacked and systematically destroyed. One of the things that Giffy Leap had targeted particularly, and I said the Giffy Leap and the Haitian Contra, so people can understand that because that's what it was, it was a contra-force. One of their targets was to systematically burn down places that are archives. And at first we were puzzled by it, but someone explained to me that those archives were, for example, deeds, copies of land deeds and what have you. Because the goal was to take lands from the peasantry, take lands from people by claiming you have no title. So you can prove it, if the records are gone, then you can prove your ownership of the land. So it was a systematic destruction. And since the coup d'etat has taken place, Haiti has never had the free open fair democratic election. Everything has been manipulated by the UN and the US, the US-UN occupation, putting in people who they wanted to do their bidding. And so the Jovenel Moïse was not put in there by decree. There was a full new election. I was present and I could see the voter suppression was horrendous. And there was an investigation into that and the tally sheets had been completely changed. And when Fomila Valas went to court and brought out all the details and showed that the overwhelming majority of the samples that were analyzed had been changed fortunately, blatantly, the US stepped in to declare that Moïse had won the elections by 55%. And every other country followed suit in accepting him. But during that period, the Haitian people took to the streets massively. Fomila Valas led almost close to 60 demonstrations within that period. And so many of the communities seeing that their votes were stolen and suppressed took to the streets in protest. Lassalin was one of the very first. And the massacre started really in Lassalin and the community was attacked by the Haitian police. I believe the first attack was on November 26th at one in the morning, where they were lobbying tear gas inside people's homes and three babies ended up dying as a result of ingesting that gas. So that's and further massacres followed suit in various other neighborhoods because people were standing up and saying, not until you steal our votes, but you're stealing our money. You're stealing our tax money. We are not getting services. We have stolen the patriarchary basements that Venezuela provided in order to deal with social programs for the community. So all of those questions were taking what's really culminated in this ongoing, ongoing massive mobilizations from the people. So we see, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Mark. I would say in terms of the repression, yes, it's against everybody, but it's particular also. And I just wanna emphasize that one of the things that's happened recently in the last couple of years is a continuing attack on women. And one of the ways that there's two ways that this has done, one is that they've been burning down the markets. There are attacks on the markets, which is where women work in the economy. And at the same time, there's been a very big increase in sexual violence, which we know always goes along in situations like this. So I think we have to be very cognizant of that as well. But I think the thing about these protests is literally the country has been protesting for years. People have been in the streets for years. This is just the latest, maybe it dies down for a couple of months and then it rises up again because people are so angry and furious about what's been going on. And I think what's different now is sort of how things grow and we talk about quantitative to qualitative change. And what's happened now is that finally, other aspects of the population are joining in, but now there's no legislature that has been done away. What the Supreme Court has been attacked, lawyers have been attacked, teachers and other aspects of the society. So the whole society now is demanding that he go. And his response to that is, other leaders have been kidnapped, other leaders have been overthrown, other leaders have died, but I will be here forever. I'm a chicken bone in the throat of the Haitian people, which like in a nutshell sort of tells the situation. And he was funded by the United States. Funded, and it's like, here we are in this situation where people are claiming that the election was stolen when it obviously wasn't, but in Haiti it was stolen, it really was. And he was elected like 10% of the people and 20% of the people actually participated. It was massively both boycotted, but at the same time they still stole it. Sorry, you... Oh, go ahead. I'm just gonna add to that. I know that the question you raised about who's being targeted, just to add one other thing, the way the US media often spins it, going back to how the US media covers it is that it's just gang violence and it's just kidnapping and insecurity. There's a horrific kidnapping right now in Haiti. The people I've known in Haiti, dear friends and comrades, I mean, they've never been through the worst it's been, but that is definitely a strategy of the regime to terrorize the poor majority. It's the poorest of the poor being kidnapped and there's clear evidence that this wave of kidnapping is linked to the elite and to the regime itself. Secondly, the neighborhoods that like Pierre was saying, the neighborhoods that have been the most active, like a lot of these demonstrations, protesting the stolen elections came out of La Saline, Cité Soleil, Bel Air, they are the neighborhoods that are being hit hardest by the so-called gangs, which are really a paramilitary desk squad called G9 working with the regime that's terrorizing these neighborhoods. So I've got multiple comments here listening to all of you. I can sit here and talk for hours, I think. So I want to, let me just keep us. May I jump in real quick? Yes. I'm sorry. No, no, no, go ahead. Okay. That's what you're here for. One of the things I wanted to say is that many times Haiti is dismissed as a basket case. People talk about Papadok Duvalier as if Papadok was just, well, it just happened to be Haitian and it's a Haitian thing. People don't really understand that Papadok Duvalier was put in place by the US government. He was put in place through fraudulent elections organized by the Haitian military. And even though he lost elections, very similar to Jovenel Moïse, yet they put him in there and then the US helped train the Tonto Makus. The Tonto Makus were the death squads that Papadok had organized a militia and very vicious. And they supplied them with weapons throughout the decades close to 29 years of Papadok's rule. And what people of my generation and other Haitians are saying is that Jovenel Moïse is following the same playbook with the full support of the US government and the United Nations and the OAS in a similar way that this happened under Papadok and Baby Dog Duvalier. So Haitians are commenting about this. I grew up in Haiti during those years. I remember them very well. And this is towards a terrible nightmare coming back. And we have the new administration of Joe Biden really their policy is following Trump's policy, Obama's policy, the Clinton policy and all the others before that who supported this kind of dictatorship in Haiti. We can do something about this. Well, yeah, we can and we should. And this conversation is hopefully a start to broaden the conversation and lead to better and broader action. So let me, so one of the things just going back to a previous comment that the grotesque and widespread violence, human rights violations. This is fascinating to me. And I would say this is also one of the reasons Haiti is not in the mainstream US media is that the US foreign policy often uses human rights violations as the narrative to intervene in a nation. And here we know that there are human rights violations being committed by a government supported by the United States. And yet we don't hear about that. And I guess the point I'm trying to make is just the abuse of the term human rights violations as a tool of US foreign policy because it's very clear that if the violations are happening in a country supported by the United States they're not declared violations. Yeah, well, I mean. And I think that's important and important thing for our listeners to understand. I mean, we call it the human rights industrial complex. It's human rights, there have been many articles and discussions about the use of human rights as an imperialist method. And there's many different ways that one could describe human rights. And the United States has its definition just the same way that the United States has its definition and people have their definition of democracy that only is supposed to be one kind and then what's real democracy. So I think the thing is that the US has always sponsored human rights violations. And I mean, to me if you look at the history of the United States from its very beginnings and people have been talking about this a lot whether it's the enslavement of people, the genocide of the indigenous people. I mean, it's founded on human rights violations. And they've completely reversed and actually what happened. And I think right now people, like we're in this amazing period because on the one hand people are exposing the history of denialism. Really we have a history of denialism. And yet at the same time, the right wing is expressing denialism around the world. So there's this contention between fascism and liberation and we're in one of those periods. And I think people probably saw what's going on in Poland or what's going on in France and all these other countries where this contention is and it's certainly true in the United States and Haiti is really a very good example of that. Let's talk about this dynamic but and how that relates to the Biden administration. How do you see the current administration? You mentioned that the current administration's policy is no different than Trump, no different than Obama. And I would with what I've seen in the past month would agree with that. And particularly for me having done so much solidarity work with Venezuela, the Biden administration overtly continuing the Trump policy of recognizing Juan Guaigo as the president of Venezuela. The faux standup president as we often joke about although it is no joke. And of course the current government in Haiti recognizes Juan Guaigo as the president of Venezuela. So let's talk a little bit about how you are seeing the Biden administration and what may happen down the road and what perhaps those of us in the United States can do to push back on that, push from the left as they say. Well, I think it was a little bit stunning how quickly the Biden administration fell into place. I mean like barely the dust had settled of the inauguration and it was last Friday I think that the State Department under Anthony Blinken, Ned Price, the spokesperson issued a statement that the Biden administration would support and recognize Jovenel Moise as president through one more year, which is February 7th, 2022. And where everybody in Haiti, the people in Haiti, the masses know that that this last Sunday, February 7th, 2021 he was termed out by the Haitian constitution. So that was a green light that the Biden administration gave to Jovenel Moise and not surprisingly two days later he did the crackdown. He arrested the Supreme Court Justice, started arresting others and then just the absolute brutality on protests. So, but meanwhile, there are people in Congress that are taking a different position, including Patrick Leahy, the president pro-tempo of the Senate issue. It said that Moise has got to go, Ilan Omar and Representative Gregory Meeks who's the chair of the House and the House on the Committee on Foreign Relations issued a very powerful letter. He's the new chair. So are we hoping for it? We think that we need an independent movement of all as many hands on deck as possible to pressure this administration to stop recognizing and subsidizing its illegitimate regime. And I wanted to add also that there has been some debate, some people are saying, well, it's a new administration. But I want to remind people that Joe Biden was vice president for eight years. And during his term with Obama, the two of them and through Secretary Larry Clinton, they brought Marty Lee, the founder of the PHTK party. Basically, PHTK means party of skinhead Haitians or party of the Haitian skinhead party. So it shows you the fascist nature of that grouping. And they are basically Duvalierists. It's the children of Duvaliers, children of hardcore Totomac Coots and Duvalierists who are in this organization and basically restarting the old Duvalier dictatorship which fell right in line with the policies of the US. So it's important that we keep that in mind. And it means that we need to push very hard, very strongly to demand a change in US foreign policy. Because on the foreign policy front, money, there is a report and I don't have it handy. I'm supposed to get a copy of it. Already millions of dollars are gonna be donated or gonna be given to Rovnel Moise to organize new elections. And one of the things that he's proposing that he's going to do, he claimed he was going to do, is to change the constitution, issue a new constitution. Now Haitians of my generation, remember that Papadok had also refused to abide by the prescriptions of the constitution. He declared himself president for life but he also created a constitution that supported that. And right now in Haiti, we have all of the judicial instances. We have even the Catholic church, every legal expert in Haiti, all the bar associations throughout Haiti, including, and I mentioned earlier, the superior, the council of the judiciary, which is the top most authority, has said that the Haitian constitution is clear. February 7th, last Sunday, he should be out, he should be gone. And so here we go with the US backing him in the same way they had backed up Francois Duvaluil. You know, it's fascinating that we've watched now how the US, I would just say, starting with the last presidential elections in Honduras, this faux presidency in Venezuela and now with the US telling a president, oh, you can basically stay for another year. And we're seeing this pattern of the US just basically naming the presidents of other countries in the hemisphere of the Americas and historically in other parts of the world as well. But that is a distinct foreign policy, US interventionism behavior. And I just, it's very, I think it's just really important for our viewers to understand that, that this is the practice and it has not changed just because we, because we elected, those of us in the States elected a new president in November. This continual, this timeline of events or this continuum of US foreign policy towards Haiti, you mentioned the Clintons. Let's talk a little bit about this US model, this US vision for Haiti, the Clinton starting with their honeymoon, I believe in Haiti. What is this paradigm that the US is imprinting on Haiti and why? Well, I mean, it's really, it goes back much, much further. I mean, the US occupied Haiti for decades and I just think that their policy is that Haiti should become, there's even more than it is should become their sweatshop, basically. Hillary Clinton said, Haiti is now open for business. And, I think- That's the same thing we heard in Honduras too. Right, and remember after the coup in 2009, it was the same thing. Remember the coup in Honduras followed the coup in Haiti, you know? Yeah. When they took out Aristide, that was, in this era, they've done it continuously, but in this era, so I think their playbook is just what has always hasn't changed particularly. It's just that now it's like under the cover of the United Nations and the OAS. So people think that they have more legitimacy. I mean, the problem about the foreign policy, of course, is that there's bipartisanship in terms of foreign policy and has been for years. And maybe they'll do a little bit different. I mean, it's great that he, you know, his current thing around Yemen and maybe they'll do a little jockeying, this and that and because Trump was so outrageous. But basically there's a bipartisan agreement about foreign policy. And I think that given the fact that, you know, that people have talked about Pierre and Seth and you about the huge uprising that's happening in Haiti, that we have an opportunity to really pressure them about this. And then we have an opportunity to support the grassroots and lava loss. I mean, to me, they go together. We don't want to see another neoliberal, if they get rid of Joe Vino Moise, we don't want to see a neoliberal with a slightly better face put in. We want to see really the party of lava loss and the grassroots movement being able to help shape what happens next. And so I think we can talk about both those things at the same time, but I do think this is one moment where people are a little more open and so we should do everything that we can to get rid of this particular guy. So what, go ahead Seth, I'm sorry. I did a model that Haitians, you know, that when I would be down there years ago, people would be talking about the model, they would call it the death plan. And it's the privatization, it's the exploitative sweatshops like the Clintons were working on as a whole industrial sweatshop corridor, but Haiti's resource rich. It's also who controls the land and the minerals, you know, whether it's box side or gold or petroleum. And this, as Merck said, this goes way back. So during their marine occupation, the US literally pressured Haiti to rewrite its constitution to allow for foreign ownership of resources, you know. And when you get a popular leader who comes from the poor and works with the poor like President Aristide, who won't go by that playbook, you know, who's practicing liberation theology that every, you know, everyone truly matters and the resources are gonna be used for the benefit of the population, they're removed, right? Just like the US has removed Salvador and Chile or Lomba from the Congo or Musa Dek from Iran. It's a consistent bipartisan pattern down the generations. And it's up to us to finally, you know, change it. And that has also historical roots, the vision of the US regards to Haiti. When our foremothers and forefathers were kidnapped from Africa, their humanity was not looked, they were not looked upon as being human being, they were as being human beings. They were regarded as being beasts of burden. And so, and that was the whole idea of the colony, the colonization mentality. And this is what is surviving today. I did the translation into English of a statement by one of the members, self-described member of Haiti's elite. It's the vilest, the vilest, most racist thing you could imagine. And that man made that statement in late November, 2016, or early December, 2016. He was stating basically why they are ready to kill anyone who doesn't support that, who will be in the way of Jovenel Moïse becoming president of Haiti. And basically he led the blueprint of what you would find that the worst racist colonists or colonizers would say in regards to people in the most racist language. So, and this is that kind of mentality that exists among the so-called Haitian elite, a tiny portion of Haiti's oligarchy that is ruling the country in collaboration with US imperialism, French imperialism and others. So this is something that the Haitian majority has been very much aware of. And people are saying enough is enough. The more that people are becoming aware of this situation, people are saying, we have to put a stop to this. Put one, say one, we are somebody. And for me, La Valasse embodies because it's forming the people, the population. It's a movement from the population, the political organization from the population. And it embodies all the demands of the people to have a seat at the decision-making table. One of the things that we've seen throughout this hemisphere is the importance, as you're talking about the people, the movement. How different politics evolve if the politics come from a really strong social labor grassroots movement versus the movement coming out of a political party, a political party rising from the movement, having that base that is there, whether or not the party is actually holding seats in the government. Can you just talk a little bit about how important movement building is? Because I don't think those of us in the United States really understand what a movement is and how important the power of a movement is that the politics come out of it. A political party being born out of a movement versus a party co-opting a movement. I'll give you all something to think about. Do you want to take a stab at that, Pierre? Yeah, let me just, and I don't want to monopolize the thing. No, but it's great because you have so much experience. Yeah, I'll give you a very concrete example, an anecdote. I went to, we were a group of us who went to Haiti in the year 2000 as a delegation. And we went to a part of Haiti that's way in the southern part of Haiti. We were with the local priests and we had to stop the car and walk in order to get to that community where we were going. So no real roads for cars. And so at that time, for Mila Vallas had issued its platform in the form of a book called investing and investing in people. And that was their political platform for the elections of 2000. And so as we were there, one of the Robert Roth, he asked me, he said, Pierre, translate this question. Asked, we were meeting with many of the peasant community. He said, ask them if they're aware of that book of investeer dans l'humain. And the response was automatically, we helped write it. Now, this blew our mind because many knowing Haiti, a number of people, the majority of the population is illiterate. And here are those people way out there and where cars can't even go. And so they explained to us, they said, look, those were our ideas. We had consultation and we gave those ideas. Those ideas were mixed with other people's ideas from different parts of the country. And for Mila Vallas organized all of that and then wrote this and put it in the book. But it's being discussed on the airwaves, in media, Radio Timon, Tele Timon. And there is the national debate about it. And the final product is this platform that you guys are reading from, but we created it. So that's an anecdote about small example of what it means as something coming from the bottom. Or like when I was there in 2010, we went on this women's delegation and we met with women from all over. And sort of like Pierre, I mean, we went to this small village that, I don't know. It's hard to say how long, how far something is because it takes you longer than you think. But, and it was... Lack of infrastructure. Yeah, you know, hundreds of women, mostly farmers and peasants and market women who are all like talking about their situation. They knew what they needed and they were part of a movement. They were part of the grassroots. And they certainly understood politics a lot better than many, many other people you might meet. And that's the thing in Haiti that it's a highly, highly politicized population. And you know, who really understand when you talk about a movement, that's what makes a movement. I mean, in some ways we can see that here now, but this was a movement for people and really people very clearly understood what they wanted and what they needed, what they had and what they had lost and what they wanted back. And so I think that that's... And how to organize around it. Yeah, and that the part, that the example of President Aristide and his program and the program of Lavalas was something that people really had to, were invested in and was about them. And therefore, when it was taken away, they were determined to get it back and build on that experience. So can we say... Go ahead. Let's just say like whenever I go and if I'm there with students, we're always blown away meeting folks that are so much more aware politically than folks here in the U.S. with all their privileges and resources. And Lavalas in Creole means flash flood, right? That is that each person is a drop of water. We come together, become a flood. And the movement in the 80s and grew and they drafted Aristide to be a candidate. It wasn't that it came to... This is what I mean. I'm happy to bring this up because this is the politics coming out of the movement. Yeah. Yeah, so it's... This is exactly... It's dialogical and he spoke and he's remained true to those principles. But if somebody doesn't, then the movement keeps moving on, right? Exactly, yes. That that's that base, that platform that continues to develop, to promote, to educate, to move the people forward. And sometimes you're in power and sometimes you're not. But that's the importance of the party coming out of the movement versus that the narrative and the actions stay in place and continue. And that is something I don't think we fully grasp in the United States with our politics. And that explains the repression. That's right. That is ongoing against those communities because the whole idea is that the repression is targeting to try to eliminate. But just like when Fidel was taken, was arrested by Batista's forces. And I believe one of the officers said, you, as he did, you cannot kill the ideas. And the Haitian priest once was quoted in a video. And he said, you know, Presidente Aristide, the man and also the program, what he represents because he represents the embodiment of the people's movement. He said he is engraved in the heart of the people of Haiti. So what this means, it's no hero worshiping or a cult leader. It's like a movement of family. Hence the name for Mila Valas, which means we are all a family and we feel for each other, we are moving together to liberate Haiti from the centuries of oppression and exploitation. I mean, one thing I would say also is that, you know, he was taken away for seven years in the bloody coup of 2004 and forced in... This is Presidente Aristide. Presidente Aristide and his wife, Mila Valas Aristide and their children and forced him to exile. But the people demanded that they come back. And they did. And now the Aristide Foundation has built a huge university. When they came back, they said, we know that education is a bedrock for our society. And they built this, they've built this amazing unifah. Which I've been to, Pierre helped organize a delegation to send me there. The fabulous facility. The U.S. did when they came in in 2004 was to smash the medical school. And now actually the unifah has rebuilt the medical school. Rebuilt and they have a law school, a medical school, a dental school, agriculture school, nursing school. And they're graduating hundreds of people. Seth and I went to one of the graduations several years ago. It was the most amazing graduation I think either of us have ever been to. And we've been to lots of graduations. And it was so joyous and so amazing. And it's part of like what, you can see the example of La Velas. You can see the example of the Aristides. You can see this university is sort of like, what it's countering. Like we said when we were there, La Selene is supposed to destroy the university and destroy this incredible example, but the university is just also gonna destroy what resulted in La Selene. And I think that when you see that, you really understand what a movement is about and its power. And they can smash leadership over and over again and they do. I mean, we know that, but then it rises up again. And what's so incredible is that what we've been talking about that these demonstrations literally have been going on for years. Like it's as if the insurrections that happened, the uprisings that happened in the summer with Black Lives Matter, you could imagine it happened, then it happened now, then it would happen again three months later than what happened again. I mean, it totally continual. We'll see if that, you know, there have been periods in the United States like that. So we'll see if that happens, but it has happened and is happening in Haiti. So one of the things before we went on the air that you mentioned, Mark, was that what's the current anti-government protests are broader. It's not simply the working people, the poor communities. It's a much broader mix of the patient demographic at this point that's protesting for the president to resign. Can you tell our audience a little bit, the difference that that makes now, who is now involved in these protests and how broad that is and why that makes, why that may perhaps make a difference this time. Do you want to do that? I mean, I think when you say you have a general strike and the country is shut down for such a long time and you see that he's attacked the Supreme Court, when you see that other people that everybody's calling for him, like the Catholic church and all the different elements that Pierre talked about, then you see, I mean, I don't like just saying it's broader in the sense that the people represent the broadest number of the population. It's always been, but then these other strata that sometimes, you know, will go against the people are now also going against Mollie's, Jovenel Mollies, but that's why I say we have double responsibility, which is we have to demand that he goes and then we have to demand that the grassroots is supported. So in our last few minutes, I don't know about that. How, in our last few minutes, how let's expand on that a bit and, and Seth, maybe you can tell us what those of us in the U.S. can do to help. Sure, I just, did you want anything? I thought anything you were going to add, Pierre, about the opposition question? I thought you were trying to jump in. Two points I wanted to raise. One is that it's not a question of Jovenel Mollies resigning. It's a question that from the very beginning he was illegitimate, he was imposed, but then the U.S. and the U.N. occupation imposed him and his deadline, the term was ended on February 7th. So now the U.S. and the U.N. occupation have made a decision to extend his mandate. So this is something that is incredibly crazy. The other thing that Merck mentioned is about what we have in Haiti is social, it's exclusion, where the majority of the population is not looked upon as being human beings. And so you have until a little strata is, is touched or is, is affected, then these are the people who count. As a matter of fact, when Zippromat did say it, this segment counts. And this is what the whole La Valasse movement is about when Seth mentioned, took moon, say moon. That means every person is a human being, is somebody who has to be respected. So I'll stop right there. Go ahead, Seth. Well, I mean, I think what's happening now in Haiti is a test for people who think of themselves as progressive in the United States. Like this is, as Merck was saying, this is the Haitian Revolution was the first independent black republic that overthrew slavery. It's been unrelenting hostility from the United States and France and other imperialist powers since the jump. So now's the time, it's always been the time, but now in particular is the time for all progressive minded people to generate a higher level of solidarity. And we need to really push the US government to stop supporting this regime immediately, to stop funding its police. That's something we didn't bring up too much, but the US has been giving the police millions and millions of dollars. We need to stop deporting. In the midst of this, just, I think it was yesterday or there was 22 children and babies that were the US deported, ICE deported into Haiti, then they've got over 1,000, maybe 2,000 more deportations scheduled. So we need to stop the deportations. We need to stop having our tax dollars used to shore up this regime and to have the Biden administration walk its talk. And I think all people, we need to make us like the solidarity movement was against apartheid in the 1980s. This is the Western hemisphere. This is the cutting edge revolutionary struggle and the fact that it's invisible even to progressives where you can get a newspaper like in these times, recently referred to Cuba as the most undemocratic country in the hemisphere. That's ridiculous. Cuba is a model in so many ways and Haiti is here, they're dealing with fascism. And so if left newspapers like that aren't getting it, we need to really challenge each other to get it and act. I think we have to say that Black Lives Matter extends not just in the United States but around the world and in the hemisphere. It's like one of the most important, although I don't like to say one is more important than the other, but in terms of the relationship between enslavement, genocide, et cetera, and freedom is Haiti. And so I think that we really have to look, we have to have a global view of the struggles that we're in. And Haiti is certainly very important and the more people can understand about what has happened in Haiti, I think it will actually also increase how we understand this country and its foreign policy and domestic policy. Yeah, how they're linked, that's so crucial. So can you share with our viewers in these last few minutes how people can get in touch with you, how they can learn more about Haiti, how they can help support the movements in Haiti and what is, what more can we do? Yes, our website, the website of the Haiti Action Committee is HaitiSolidarity.net, HaitiSolidarity.net. And we have a Facebook page, Haiti Action Committee on Facebook. People can, and there's also a Twitter page, but you can find that when you go to our website. Also, I'm a board member, as you mentioned of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, it's HaitiEmergencyRelief.org and all one word, small letters. And we support initiatives from the grassroots school, community schools, clinics. We have provided some assistance to the teaching hospital to UNIFAA and to the University of the Al-Sid Foundation and the teaching hospital that they're in the process of building. So, and so many other things, former cooperatives and what have you that we provide assistance for, to help people be on their feet and rebuild the new Haiti as well as advocacy. And I don't want to talk the whole thing. So, to somebody else, actually. No, that's it, HaitiEmergencyRelief.org, HaitiSolidarity.net, and yeah, that's the key info. And there's all sorts of action alerts once you go to the website about, currently we have an action alert target, trying to put pressure on the Biden administration. And there is a Twitter page in addition to Haiti Action Committee's Twitter page, there is HaitiInfoQuadge. And HaitiInfoQuadge, it's more up to the minute, news and information, networking stuff on Haiti. Those are the trusted sources. Okay, great. Thank you, the three of you. Wonderful, I'm so pleased that you could join us this evening and I'm so happy to see all of you again. I just want to remind our viewers that we have spent the past hour with members of the Haiti Action Committee, Pierre Labossier, Seth Donnelly, and Judith Merkinson. We're so thankful for your time. I'm so happy that we had this conversation and we will continue to amplify the message on Haiti and continue to work with you in lifting the voices and influencing the United States government and the current administration. Thank you. So thank you all of you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm so thankful for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you to all of you and for your years of work with Haiti. So thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. Thank you to our viewers and again, I'll just remind you that what the F is going on in Latin America broadcasts every Wednesday for 30 p.m. Pacific 7, 30 p.m. Eastern on Code Pink YouTube. Thanks again, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Take care, Terry. Thank you so much. Really pleased to have this conversation. Thank you.