News Release

U.S. Policy on Haiti Branded Racist, Humanitarian Crisis Caused by Interventions

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© Rémi Kaupp, CC-BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons

AJAMU BARAKA, ajamubaraka2@gmail.com@ajamubaraka
JEMIMA PIERRE communications@blackallianceforpeace.com, @Blacks4Peace
    Haitian-born Jemima Pierre is coordinator of the Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti and the Americas Committee. She just wrote the piece “Borders, Blackness, and Empire” for Black Agenda Report.

    National organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, Baraka said today: “Seeking asylum by individuals who may be facing prosecution, imprisonment and even death because of political affiliation or membership in racial, national, sexual or religious groups is a recognized requirement under international law.

    “That the Biden administration has ordered federal authorities to mass deport thousands of Haitians, which will probably have the effect of driving many of them who will resist deportation back into Mexico and Central and South America, is both massive in its scope and fundamentally racist.”

    The group added: “If successive U.S. administrations had not undermined Haitian democracy and national self-determination, there would be no humanitarian crisis in Haiti or on the U.S. border. George W. Bush greenlit the 2004 coup against elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide. The UN sanctioned the coup with a full-scale military occupation. The Obama administration installed Michel Martelly and the Duvalierist PHTK party. And the Biden administration upended democracy in Haiti by supporting Jovenel Moïse despite the end of his term. All of these imperialist interventions have ensured that thousands would have to seek safety and refuge outside of Haiti. The U.S. policy response? Imprisonment and deportation. The United States has created an endless loop of dispossession, depravity and despair.”

    Baraka tweeted today: “You have questions as to why border police would assault Haitians, the story from the absence of the major white colonial powers from the day-long UN event on race is a good indicator of where the U.S. & its allies stand on white supremacy.” See CNN report: “The United Nations held a major meeting on race. Why the U.S. and UK skipped it.”
Also, see: “Center for Constitutional Rights to President Biden: If You Attempt to Warehouse Haitian Refugees at Guantánamo We Will Sue.”