 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast weekly at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern on CodePink's YouTube channel. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, and now at radindymedia.com. Today's episode, the impending US invasion of Haiti. I'm really honored and pleased and excited to have our guest, Jamima Pierre, of Black Alliance for Peace. Some of you know we've tried a number of times to have her join us, and so here she is with us today. I want to tell all of you a little bit about her. She's got an impressive resume. She is Associate Professor, Department of African-American Studies, and Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles. She has a sociocultural anthropologist whose research and teaching interests are located in the overlaps between African studies and African diaspora studies, and engage three broad areas, race, racial formation theory, and political economy, culture, and the history of anthropological theory, and transnationalism, globalization, and the diaspora. She is the author of the Predicament of Blackness, Post-Colonial Guyana, and the Politics of Race. So welcome, Jamima. Really an honor to have you with us today. Thanks so much for having me. It's my pleasure. I would, let me give the audience a brief background of what we're going to talk about today. On Monday, October 17th, thousands of protesters across Haiti, oops, sorry, I lost my audio there, thousands of protesters across Haiti, protested, forced the resignation or protesting the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The protest started hours before the United Nations Security Council held a split vote over sending an international force to Haiti to help with deteriorating security and a surge in cholera after powerful gangs took over the main port and blocked fuel deliveries. The government had been awaiting a response to Henry's recent request for the international community to help set up a quote specialized armed force, unquote, to quell the violence which has worsened in the power vacuum created by the 2021 assassination of President Covenal Moise. The United States and Mexico said on October 17th that they are preparing another UN resolution that would authorize, quote, an international assistance mission, unquote, to help improve security and crisis rack Haiti so that humanitarian and desperately needed medical supplies by millions of people could be delivered. Petroleum stations have remained closed. Hospitals have slash services in and as well as businesses, including banks and supermarkets have cut their hours as everyone across the country runs out of fuel. So Jamima, let's talk about this intervention that seems to be coming and there's a lot of euphemisms that Mexico, United States and UN have used to create an intervention and maybe for the audience, it'd be really good for you to talk to us about the significance of October 17th in the history of Haiti because this is a really important date and not just for Haiti, in my opinion, not just for Haiti, but for the hemisphere as well. And we don't talk enough about this in the hemisphere. Right, so October 17th is important because it was the anniversary of the assassination of Jean-Jacques de Salin who's the father of the Haitian nation. He took over the revolution after the French captured Toussaint Louverture who had helped begin the revolution against the French and against slavery and colonialism in 1791 and he took over once Toussaint Louverture was captured by the French in 1803 and he was assassinated by rivals in 1806 but after he declared Haiti independent and a republic and wrote the constitution. And so I think it's really amazing that, and I don't even think that this was an accident that they would choose this date, the U.S. and it's, I'll call them minions and its peoples in creating this to have this conversation where they were thinking about, they're thinking about sending an armed group to intervene into Haiti at this moment. And so it's really, which is really seen as an affront to the Haitian people. They were very, not frustrated but angry at the audacity of the U.S. at this particular moment over this meeting in particular, but in general since the protests have been going on for 10 weeks. So this particular set of protests has been going on for 10 weeks but there have been a series of protests in Haiti over more recent years, probably 300 years really Haitians fought for their freedom and have continued to fight ever since it's, they've never been fully recognized as sovereign people, not with their dead and not with their lives but there's been a series of eruptions protests like for the last three to five years. So to me, from the outside looking in, this is a series of protests of the Haitian people expressing their frustration with external interference and really pushing for their sovereignty to be respected. That's correct. And I do wanna say one of the things that emerges from the Western media around the current, what they wanna call crisis in Haiti is the fact that they actually have not highlighted the protests what they've highlighted, they've hidden the protests under the discourse of gangs and personalize it to one gang member. And that's the way the U.S. does it, it demonizes one person and then that becomes the boogeyman for intervention or bombings or drones and so on and so forth. And so I called it the bin Ladenization of these young men in Haiti. But so the protests have been going on for 10 weeks primarily and this is key and this is why it's not mentioned in the mainstream press because the Haitian de facto prime minister which was installed by the U.S. in the core group and not elected, removed few subsidies from Haiti. And this is something that the U.S. has been trying to do for a long time. And so, and I would like to point people to assistant secretary for the region, Brian Nichols who admitted just yesterday in an interview on CNN that when they asked them why the U.S. supports Aya Ali, he says, well, he has ended few subsidies on which is something we have wanted to see in Haiti for quite some time and I respect them for that. So that tells you everything where it's, the shame of this thing is that the fact that you dismissed the principles of basic good politics and policy when it comes to Haiti, how can you praise the government for cutting subsidies that led to 130% increase in prices amongst the global economic crisis, right? And so to put this in context, the average minimum wage in Haiti is about $2 a day, right? Gas prices were about, I think three or $4 a gallon with the removal of subsidies, the prices are now $6 a gallon and people are making $2 a day and it's outrageous. And one of the key reasons why one of the young men who's blocking one of the key oil areas in Haiti, he say until the subsidies are put back in place, he's gonna block everyone, right? And so one of the things we have to know about is the U.S. insistence of really killing Haitian labor and they've done that over and over again, just maybe about 12 years ago, the WikiLeaks file revealed how the Obama administration tried to prevent the government from raising Haitian minimum wage to $5 a day, right? And so these are like bread and butter issues that the Haitians are protesting and they're protesting and they want this Prime Minister gone, they want him to step down because he's a puppet and he was installed without, he has no legitimacy, he was installed by foreigners. And but also he's been able to remove the subsidies and the reason there are protests, and I have to say you say the past three to five years, there are protests in 2018 when Joel Velmaiz, another illegitimate president tried actually announced that he would remove the fuel subsidies. And so everyone took to the streets and so it was so politically bad that he actually didn't do it. But the U.S. is able to get this are your only guy to come in and do it. So that's really the key to the protest, but also general frustration of interference. You know, and I guess we could talk about this later, but the reason that there's a security issue is because there's been about 700,000 guns dumped into Haiti coming through private ports and these ports are owned by the Haitian, well, I don't know if you wanna call them, but the non-black oligarchy, there are transnational oligarchy that lived in Miami, in France, different places in the Western world that own these ports. So there's no way that you have guns coming through Haiti without the people knowing, without the U.S. and the guns are coming from the U.S. And so there's been a dumping of guns into the area, into Port-au-Prince and that's really caused an increase in young men who have nothing to do. They're being given guns by these political parties, by these oligarchs to fight one another to protect their assets in the country. So that's really what's behind the insecurity that could be fixed by actually just stopping the guns from leaving the U.S. and getting to Haiti. But instead, what the U.S. wants to do is actually send an armed mercenary force, really, to basically prop up this completely illegal legitimate and unpopular prime minister that they installed. So what I am hearing, understanding is that these 700,000 guns, this is a way to destabilize the country internally, the gang violence, and then the gang violence that's being manufactured, that violence is being used as the excuse for an international force to intervene. So it's a manufactured crisis, which is not unique to Haiti in my opinion. Exactly, it's not unique to Haiti. And I wish, and I always say this, and I say, if people didn't exceptionalize Haiti so much, they would see the patterns. And I was talking to a group just yesterday, an older Caribbean activist group, and they're saying, well, the U.S. did the same thing in Jamaica in the 80s, just dump all kinds of weapons into the country. And so Jamaica's violence is out off the chain compared to Haiti, really, or even Mexico. And that's the most ironic part, is that you have these cartels controlling things, but yet, you have Mexico trying to send a force to Haiti. But one of the key things to think about is the intervention, I want people to really know what the U.S. is trying to propose here. And Haiti is the laboratory for U.S. foreign policy experiments, because it is through the Global Fragility Act, which was passed by Donald Trump in 2019, which is the new foreign policy template for the U.S. And what the Global Fragility Act says is that they're trying to find a way to use allies in the region to, they're like, they're gonna focus on fragile countries, fragile states that are violent. And they're using- Fragile is defined by the United States. Exactly. Or as a manufacturer. As a manufacturer. Right, and so, exactly. And so the whole point then, this new foreign policy is a combination of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and USAID. This is the new model, and I hope people look up the Global Fragility Act. It's a new model for foreign policy where you basically deploy local forces around, and use so-called local-based solutions. And then local allies to actually work to bring security and safety to these different countries. And so what's happening with this Global Fragility Act is that the U.S. chose five countries, and guess which is the first country that they're trying it on? Haiti. So Haiti and Libya are the first two countries that they're gonna try the Global Fragility Act. And so I wanna talk about the intervention because one of the key problems, one of the key things that shock us all is that Haiti has had a long history of intervention. And Haiti is still under occupation from the 2004 coup d'etat that was led by Canada, France, and the U.S. and then hidden by the U.S. a Chapter 7 peacekeeping, so-called peacekeeping operation where the U.N. still runs Haiti. So the forces left in 2017, but they left the core group, which is run in the Beano office, which is run by Helen Lee, which is the office that actually led the charge on October 17th to ask for a foreign occupation. But this foreign occupation is different than the U.N. one is because they were very specific to saying that they want a non-U.N. multinational force. And you have to wonder why it is that they would want a non-U.N. force. And they want a force of like, almost like the coalition of the willing of having, you know, of not, you know, so we hated the U.N. occupation, but to have a force that's not under the U.N. mandate actually makes it even less legal. And they're, you know, so the legal realm of the legal parameters that these didn't become very confusing, right? And so basically it's like getting a coalition of countries willing to send troops into Haiti, armed troops that are, you know, but without the purview of the U.N. That to me is a bunch of mercenaries going into Haiti and doing that. And so, but the Global Fragilities Act is such that it basically says it will do something like that. So right now, what we see is happening is that I think we think that the U.S. they're having trouble getting the Western countries to provide troops, but they've already convinced the Karakam countries, the Caribbean countries to provide troops. So all in line one after another, the past week you had the Haman government, the Trinidad government, the Guyanese government saying that they are willing to send troops into Haiti. And that is a recipe for disaster. So let me ask, the U.N. still has a mission there, troops there, okay. So they have police there. They said they removed all the troops and the mission supposedly finished in 2019, but the U.N. office, the Vino office is still there. Yes. Okay. So there's still a presence there with police. Now you're going to introduce a non-U.S. Western. A non-right. Coalition. Black countries. Right. Yeah, I'm shocked about Karakam. Well, maybe not. No, you shouldn't be. No, maybe not. So listening to this, let me just ask you, are we seeing, to me when I see a coalition non-U.N. Western, I have to say to me, this is almost like watching what's playing out in Europe right now. And East-West. Probably more. Yes, and East versus West, or Eurasia versus the international community, Western. And, you know, it may also play out in other parts of the Americas as well, with Columbia being a NATO global partner and Venezuela being right next door as a Russian ally. I mean, is this like growing? Or maybe not growing, but becoming more and more visible, I guess. Yeah, but it's also using proxies everywhere so that U.S. troops don't have to be on the ground. And then you have to link this to military exercises because one of the things, the goal is to use soldiers from these, but with U.S. equipment and U.S. training, right? So then it makes sense then you have the Southern command that's been having military exercises every year. So operation trade wins, which is a military exercise that they have every year that includes all these Caribbean and some Latin American countries in the area where they have exercises right off the coast of Venezuela, right? And so that tells you what, so you wonder, so why are they doing these exercises? So that these countries, they can fulfill the role of the U.S. without, so it doesn't look like you have white people going into Haiti like you've had in the past in 1915 where it was like the white races from the South invading Haiti. Now you can have black and brown folks from the Caribbean and elicit some African help, right? You can send these black troops to kill black Haitians in Haiti. And that to me is distressing and we should all be outraged. So, oh boy, I've got like a whole list of questions that I've been scribbling down. So the Southern command has been off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, but very close to the coast. That was expand, that's like a full fleet there now, I believe, not just regional, but that's been expanded to a full fleet. The oil subsidies, the fuel subsidies in Haiti, is that part of Petro Caribe? Is that part of the Venezuelan oil program? It was historically, it's not any longer, is that my... Right, so that they've always, they've had the fuel subsidies predate the Petro Caribe. As far as I can tell, the Petro Caribe is a separate program, right? And so I'd have to double check whether or not it predates, but for people who don't know, this was under Hugo Chavez, one of the true friends of Haiti, of Venezuela. And God rest his soul, I wish he was still alive. A lot of us do. Yes, yes, oh my gosh. And so he created this fund for the Caribbean nations where when oil prices were really high, basically providing oil to these nations at major discount at a loan of 1% interest with that they did not have to pay for 25 years. And so then these nations would take the oil, sell it, and then use the profits for development projects. And the US, and so Lene Perval, who became president and signed on to the Petro Caribe, really the US wanted him out because they were very upset that he actually went behind their back and signed this deal in 2006. And they've been trying to get rid of Petro Caribe for the longest. And they got out of it once they installed Jovenel Moïse who was able, who got out of the Petro Caribe program, which would have been very helpful. But at the same time, not before the PhDK, the party that Hillary Clinton helped put in place, Michelle Martelli from 2010, stole about $2 billion worth of that money that was set up. And which is why you had protest from 2019 to 2020, saying all of these elites stole this party, this political party that was pushed onto people, all of them became extremely wealthy off of this Petro Caribe money. Okay, that's the missing link for me. So there's my light goes on. That's the missing link for me with, okay. So what is, oh, I had one other thing I wanted to ask about, find my notes here, I'm sorry. So with this non-UN, multinational force, and listening, mercenary force, yeah. I appreciate you using that word versus contractor, I hate that euphemism that's used in the West contracted. Yeah, well, when I was a kid, they were called mercenaries, and they still an appropriate term, a realistic term. What, so what sort of, aside from the protest in Haiti, what sort of protest pushback is happening in the region or globally? Or is Haiti on its own in this, again? I think Haiti, yeah. So often used. Yeah, I think Haiti is on its own, even though I've been heartened the past couple of weeks by how many people in the US have finally turned to Haiti and have been really pushing against invasions. And so you have people in Haiti, they've been protesting since the day of October 17th, protesting against the UN plan to send a force. There've been nonstop protests against a foreign invasion. Everyone is against the foreign invasion in Haiti. And one of the key things is, the US is saying that the Haitian government asked for a foreign invasion. Let's be clear, there is no Haitian government. There's an installed puppet minister that was asked, and I have to implicate the OAS, which Castro rightly called the Ministry of Colonies, where it was Luis Almagro, the right-wing OAS Secretary General that tweeted in October 6th, after he had come gummed to Haiti to support, and Almagro has supported every terrible dictator slash, whatever in Haiti, from the very beginning, right? But he's the one that tweeted, after meeting Ariel Henri, he tweeted that the Haitian government should ask for international support to help with this issue. The next day, Ariel Henri strongly asked, on behalf of the Haitian government, on behalf of Haitian people, for armed military intervention. And so it's ridiculous because people are protesting and say, well, this guy has no mandate, he's unelected, he has no, the only thing that's holding him up is US power. That's your reason he still has a position in Haiti and it's not a recognized position. So how could he ask for foreign intervention? So Haitians are constantly protesting this, but there've been a lot of people, I mean, groups here, you have a lot of groups, a lot of grassroots have been writing a lot of event, a lot of press releases, statements about this, against this intervention. There've been some in-person protests in all over the cities. And I can't really name all of this, but there've been quite a number. There's been a lot. Yeah, there've been some in Europe. And I hope they continue because what's happened as a response, one of the key things that happened during the vote though, is that China and Russia actually pushed back against the idea of an armed intervention. And I think there's a large, there's a Haitian group that actually wrote to China and Russia and asked for the veto. So did we have Black Alliance with these, we actually directed specific letters, we hand a little bit letters to them in Washington DC, asked them to vote no against intervention. So they brought this up saying, well, how could you have an intervention when there's an illegitimate president? That's what the Chinese representatives said during the meetings. But what we see happening, so even though now I think it's great, there's a tension to this. And we thought things subsided for a bit, right? Once they decided on sanctioning, which is ridiculous, sanctioning these individual so-called gang members as opposed to the people who financed them, which are the oligarch, right? But then despite the fact that the vote did not go through around the international intervention, the US has been nonstop working. So today, for example, you have the Pentagon sheet and the Canadian defense minister meeting to talk about a plan for Haiti. And then you have Brian Nichols announcing that by early November, they will find a force to go in and take care of Haiti. So they're relentless. So even if the point is, even if they don't get the UN Security Council go ahead, they've already decided because Canada sent a group of people today. Canada sent a plane full of equipment two weeks ago. And so people are saying, my sources on the ground are saying that Canada and the US are gonna provide logistics and the Caribbean and some African countries are gonna provide troops. So this is when we actually need to stand up and protest even more. Listening to you, it sounds to me that this international force, this non-UN force, because the UN is already there, China and Russia as part of the UN Security Council do not support intervention. So this is really very clearly a workaround from the UN. A workaround that they will continue to use later. Exactly. And specifically a workaround from China and Russia's position. Exactly. So once this works in Haiti, they will use it elsewhere. Exactly. That's why we say Haiti is the lab. They can try and get away with these things. And so now that they're so upset because they've been so frustrated by the vetoes with China, especially Russia's vetoes, right? And I think that's the way to bypass the UN while still claiming to be working with the UN. Basically bypassing Russia and China. Exactly. Because that's part of the global fragilities act as well, it indentions Russia and China at the end. Yeah, and the whole Eurasia project versus the internet of the West or the quote, unquote, international community which is all of five countries out of 192. Yeah. Wow, this is like fascinating and also really scary. Scary. Awful. Yeah, it's horrifying. Yeah, we have a lot of work to do in the States, a lot to do. And so let's talk about work to do in the States. You mentioned so many different groups in the States that are, you know, have protest statements, letters, Black Alliance for Peace has written a letter to the president of Mexico. And maybe we should talk about that because I am talking with you from Mexico city. And, you know, we love the president here but like with any government, you know, not everybody gets it right. And sometimes there are also slits as we're clearly seeing in the States within the government. And so what are you, you've written a letter, Black Alliance for Peace has written a letter address to Lopez Obrador. And can you share with us the content of that and what we can do to help uplift your concerns? Right. And I have to say this letter was actually an open letter to that was signed actually by a number of organizations that we were able to get quite a number. I think about 40 organizations to sign on with us against to talk to Amlo and just basically say, this is not the way to go. But one of the key things that I don't think people realize the way that first of all, the UN is an undemocratic institution. And if we began with that premise because you have five permanent seats, veto power and so on, right? So, and it was, you know, the history of the UN is linked to colonialism and the League of Nations and it's really set up to maintain European hegemony in the international community. So I wanna begin there. But so then what ends up happening is that the US really, you know, the UN Security Council has 15 seats even though you have the five permanent seats but you have rotating seats. And this is how the US has been able to actually exert its influence because you have the three African nations, you know in the rotating seat and they think they can curry favor the US if they go along with the plan. And who are those three? But Mexico's, I think it's Gabon, Kenya. I don't, the several, maybe Ghana. I'd have to double check. Yeah. So those are the three African nations. They vote along the US. Mexico also has a rotating seat and but Mexico is what's considered a co-pen holder in the UN Security Council. And co-pen holder, the role is basically to help, they focus on one specific issue. So Mexico is the co-pen holder for Haiti. And what it does is co-pen holder for the US with the US. So the US, these permanent seats, they work with different countries that are under security, rotating seats in the Security Council to take on an issue. So Mexico took on an issue, which means that they write all the resolutions around Haiti. They work with the US to come up with the UN plan. And so Mexico was very key to writing this resolution that push for an armed multinational invasion of Haiti. And they were key to renewing the UN mandate last year. We saw that, you know, they, so they write the, so they work, they work in cahoots with the US. And so we were, when we found this out, we were extremely frustrated and shocked because Amalil is, you know, a leftist president, right? Everybody's excited. He's trying to nationalize lithium and he speaks a good game, right? In terms of, if you think about his statements against, you know, the blockade against Cuba and sanctions regime against Venezuela and so on and so forth. But at the same time. And his whole vision for regional integration for Latin America and the Caribbean. It's very exciting and very appealing to a lot of people. Exactly. And, but that's the thing, right? And so, and it was similar to Brazil in 2004 with Lula, right? It's like Brazil was this, you know, leftist, you know, government growth of power and then Lula was promised a seat on the security council if they took over the military wing of the UN occupation. And so then Haiti becomes the training ground for these people to try on their military, but to also assert their, you know, their power in the region. And so I'm afraid this is exactly what's happening with Amalil. And that's exactly what's going to happen with the Karakam countries, using Haiti as a site to train, right? Or to promote themselves as a leader in the region. And so most like Palestine is used in the Middle East. Exactly. So this, so that's, so we wrote to Amalil and say, you know, we understand, you know, we're excited, you know, we were excited that, you know, you over the years, he's emerged as one of the more progressive voices in the hemisphere. You know, we applauded his commitment for, you know, trying to forge new equitable relations between nations and the people of the Americas, especially against Western bullying and dominance. And so we told them that we should, for that reason, he should not allow himself to carry out US and Western New Colonial policies in Haiti. And so, and we said, since you support self-determination, you should also support Haitian self-determination. And so then we went into the letter and explained what's been going on since 2004, the coup d'etat, the UN occupation, what the UN forces did to Haitians, right? The cholera, which is the other thing that's disgusting is the fact that it's the UN forces that brought cholera to Haiti, that killed up to 30,000 and sickened a million but because they don't fecal matter into the rivers of Haiti. But now they're using cholera as an excuse for an invasion, right? So they brought cholera, they never, they took them six years to acknowledge that they brought cholera. They never paid restitution, they never fixed the water system that they broke. But now they're using that as a way to come back. And so, so there's that, but also what Amlo was been frustrating is his work with Trump in militarizing the borders in Chapatua in allowing this remain in Mexico policy, in allowing the, you know, the 22, something about the COVID, I forgot the name of it, but working alongside the US to stem migration into the US. And militarizing. We're not white migration into the US. Not white, right? Because the Ukrainians came right through with the role of boys, they came in with their bags and so on and so forth. But, you know, I've been to the US-Mexico border and I've been there, you know, you have thousands of people living under a highway waiting to be, you know, waiting to come up for asylum. And so, and then Chapatua now, he's, you know, they're stopping them at the bottom of, you know, the southern border of Mexico and bringing out the military. And so we're saying, well, why are you doing this on behalf of the US? Does Haiti not matter, right? And so, and we said this to Carrie Com as well, because, you know, if you're asserting a sub-determination all nations should be able to chart their own destiny and not just some. And so, and we also said, you know, you must know the history of the proud Haitian people whose revolution changed the course of the world. And the thing is Mexico should contribute to ending this occupation, not to extending it. And that's the letter we sent to him. And, you know, we handed the letter in person, in the embassy, but also we emailed it and sent it in Spanish. So, somebody read it. So you delivered it in person in D.C. or here? In D.C. In D.C. To the embassy in D.C. To the embassy. And then we emailed it to the president, office here in Mexico. I mean, it is fascinating and disappointing, I guess, because, yeah, Mexico does have a really, for me personally, a fantastic vision for regional integration for Latin America and the Caribbean. And that was really overt during the SELAC summit, September of 2021 that was held here in Mexico City. And it's confounding to me also because Mexico's foreign policy is based on non-interventionism. That's the history of the country. And then, honestly, that's one of the things that I enjoy living in this country so much is that it's not a warring nation, but I'm a little wrong in that. So then what happened, that's what we say when it comes to Haiti, all of that leftism collapses. I mean, and so we have to figure out why that is. For sure. That it's okay to trample on Haitian sovereignty and dignity, but not others. Why do you think that is? I mean, what is your... I'm not sure. I think there's a way that Haiti is exceptionalized. I think it has to do with race. I think definitely, I think this black nation is demonized even among other black countries. And if we only need to review the immigration policies of the Bahamas, of Jamaica, of Guyana to see how terrible Haitians are treated, but also there's a 200 years of demonization of Haitians in the Western media. And I think people have bought into that. And so from the beginning of the revolution, you have the Western media reporting all kinds of terrible things about Haiti and Haitians. You have people in the Caribbean, black people saying, oh, those are the Vodou people. We don't wanna have anything to do with them. So I do think there's something about the exceptionalizing of Haiti. I think it's winning its independence as early as it did, but also it being portrayed as like the savages that basically killed all the whites in Haiti. But I also think there's an anti-blackness that comes when it comes to thinking about sovereignty. And I think the exceptionalization does not allow room for seeing Haitian people as like real human beings. And their treatment is actually very similar to the treatment of other people in the region and in the world. What's been interesting to me is in tweeting, I've been tweeting a lot about this, against this invasion the past month or so, is Yemenis coming to my timeline saying, they did the same thing to us. This is the same thing that's happening. So, if we really, exactly, if we saw Haiti as like a normal group of people that are not exceptionalized as being so different, then we'd actually be able to actually make these connections and really truly have like an anti-imperialist praxis that would include everyone and not just exceptionalize this little country. I just wanna mention for our audience, I will include in the program notes, Jameema's social media handles, and I'll also put the link, Jameema of the Black Alliance for Peace Letter into the program notes. So people can reference that, and the audience can reference that. So in our last few minutes, what can we do? And how do you see, or maybe I should ask Bruce, how do you see all of this unfolding? Is it going to accelerate? Yeah. No, you think so. I mean, are you anticipating an invasion? I am, and I just got an email from a friend there saying that they're planning to use Karakam soldiers. And so, and that's, the US is relentless when it comes to Haiti. And it's shocking to me because they manufactured this crisis. And the reality is, there've always been like young armed men in Haiti the past, at least the past 20, 30 years where politicians are, these young guys don't have anything else to do. They don't have money, they're poor. So, the elite used to use them to settle scores with their enemies and so on and so forth. So there's always been an armed element. It's not as bad as Mexico, it's not as bad as Jamaica, which is why it's fascinating that this crisis has become such a worldwide crisis, but it builds upon the idea that Haitians are savages and can't move themselves. Everybody believes Haiti's about to collapse. It's like when the president was assassinated last summer, they're already calling for intervention back then because they're like, this place is about to collapse. And people are calm. Nobody did anything. It's like, oh yeah, the president got assassinated because people kept moving, right? But I think what's going to happen is that they are gonna do that and it's gonna be a bloodbath because these young people are so angry. Not just these young people, everyone, including my mother, who's like, you know, older conservative Christian lady, who's just like, how dare they think that they can send armed invasion to Haiti? So everyone's up in arms. And I actually think these young guys are gonna fight that. And to me, this is gonna be a bloodbath because everybody's so against this intervention and everybody's saying 2004 is not the same as 2000. 2022 is not 2004. They're not gonna sit by and let these armed people come in. So that to me is the scary part. And then of course, if people fight back, then the US is gonna come in and really use a lot of force. And that's my worry. And I think what we should do right now, I think all of us is to really get louder and push against this impending invasion. Reach out to Karakam. And in particular, you know, Black Alliance of Peace, we've also written an open letter to Karakam. We've been trying to lobby, you know, and I think we need to really push and be loud and push against this intervention because what it's gonna do is cause more trouble and also push for the US to leave Haiti alone and stop meddling. And I know people are saying, well, things are so bad. What can we do? Don't you need the intervention to unblock the gas? And I'm like, no, actually just leave Haiti alone. If the UN left, if everybody left, we would figure it out. And we have not been allowed the opportunity to figure out our own destiny. And so just really ask for people to say no to invasion. Get out of Haiti, leave Haiti alone. And that's what that's really what we want. Respect the sovereignty. Yeah. Sovereignty does not exist in the US foreign policy lexicon. Exactly, exactly. We just have determination for the entire region and everyone should be allowed the space to determine their destiny. Let me ask you just one more question before I let you go. Is the end game here with Haiti to turn Haiti into a Caribbean US military base? US military base. Well, the US has been wanting a military base in Haiti since the 1800s. I don't know if there's this small island called Moles in Nicola that they actually sent Frederick Douglass who was the US foreign minister in the late 1800s. That's a fascinating story there. Yeah. And so they sent, and I make a plug with my partner who has a great piece in the Boston Review called Frederick Douglass in Haiti. And he talks to you, he counts this history. But they sent him there to negotiate this island off of the north coast of Haiti because the US has been wanting to have a base there which is why they ended up in Guantanamo Bay. They couldn't get this island. Haitians have said no. So there's that, there's also oil, right? And so one thing my mother will say is, you go to the southwestern part of Haiti there are these ships drilling oil off the coast of Haiti and the local people have tried to go out to the sea to ask them what they're doing there and they're turned away with guns. So you have the oil drilling, you have the mineral rights that are being given away to foreigners. And so you have a lot of things. But I do think the end game is to have Haiti as a strategic location for the US to establish itself because that's the only thing that explains the fact that Haiti has the fourth largest US embassy in the world, right? And so if Haiti doesn't matter, why would the US do that? And so I think they want to have it as a staging ground because as they prepare to deal with, they think they're gonna deal with China as they prepare to engage China. Haiti provides a way to go through the Panama Canal to get to the end of the sea. So, yeah, all of that stopping the new Silk Road. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So, on to Mima, what a fabulous conversation. I should, where are you today? We should let the audience know where you're talking to us from today. I'm in Dakar, Senegal. West Africa, and it's amazing. I'm here for a conference, so. Oh, great, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for making time to talk with us today. I learned so much and I'm assuming our audience has as well. I'm going to post again, as I mentioned earlier, I'll post your Twitter, your social media handles in the program notes, the Black Alliance for Peace Letter, and you know what? I'm gonna post that Boston Review article too. Amazing piece, yes, it is. I've read it and it is, it's fascinating and it's a piece of history we don't learn about in the United States and we don't care about, yeah. So, thank you so much for joining us. I wanna remind our audience, you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, Code Pink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. We broadcast every Wednesday, sometimes Thursday, depending on guest availability, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And I should also remind you to listen to Code Pink Radio, which broadcasts 11 a.m. Eastern out of New York City on WBAI and Washington DC on WPFW. That program is also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So, thank you everyone, a huge thank you to you, Jamima. I'm so thankful for our conversation today. And enjoy the rest of you. It's my pleasure. I'm trying. It's already evening, so, yeah. What's the time difference? It's like 7.30 p.m. Eastern between you and me. Yeah, I think it was four hours for Eastern time, but seven hours for the second time, yeah. Okay, and I'm two, so five, I guess. Five, two, two, six come fall, so. Okay, thank you again. Very much appreciate the conversation. My pleasure. Take good care. You too, bye-bye.