Workers Solidarity Movement

One year after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, the conditions endured by the ordinary people there are as bad, or worse, than they were before the earthquake. Of the billions of dollars promised by governments around the world to rebuild the devastated country only a fraction has reached the people of Haiti.

The earthquake that devastated Haiti and shook the world could have heralded a new start for the perpetually impoverished Caribbean nation. But the reconstruction plans have made it clear that local and global elites wish to continue the policies that lie behind Haiti’s history of violence and deprivation.

The horrific death toll from the earthquake in Haiti briefly focused the world’s attention on the plight of the Haitian people. The earthquake was a natural disaster coming on top of decades of human disasters imposed upon the people as its economy has been forced to transform to suit the needs of transnational corporations. This is the reason so many people were packed into substandard accommodation in Port-au-prince.

Approximately 40 people packed in Solidarity Books in Cork to hear Elsie Haas (a Haitian film-maker and journalist, based in Paris) and Jose Antonio Gutierrez (of the Latin American Solidarity Centre in Dublin) talk about the political and economic history of Haiti and how the recent US intervention in the country, following the earthquake, is just a continuation of the UN-led occupation since 2004, following on from 200 years of occupations and imperialism.

As predictions for the death toll from the Haitian earthquakes rise over 200,000, ABC News have reported that planes carrying medical equipment and relief supplies are having to compete with soldiers for the valuable slots at Port-au-Prince airport which was taken over by the US military after the quake. Since the start of the great anti-slavery republican insurrection nearly 220 years ago, Haiti has been presented as a dangerous place incapable of running its own affairs and requiring foreign intervention. Yet the reality is its people were the first enslaved population to deliver themselves from slavery and also carried out what was only the third successful republican insurrection on the planet. The threat of this good example was rewarded with centuries of invasion, blackmail, the robbery of Haiti's natural resources and the impoverishment of its people. This articles summarizes that history of intervention and the resistance to it in order to put into context what is happening in Haiti after the quake.

The 7th of February is quite an important day in Haitian recent history and we would dare to say that is a very important day for the working class' struggles all overthe world -that's the day of the fall of the Duvalier's tyranny back in 1986. Since then, there has been demonstrations in Haiti commemorating that milestone in their struggle for liberation, but at the same time, to remind the people that there's still a long way of struggles ahead.

On the 7th of February of 1986, the Haitian people, after years of revolt against the rich and the powerful in their country, toppled one of the most brutal dictatorships that history has recorded, the one led by the Duvalier family. But not only they did put an end to the US-backed reign of terror of the Duvaliers, but as well, the people were pushing forward a series of popular demands that were meant to radically change the face of Haiti: this was a truly revolutionary struggle.

The 30th of September (2005) marked a new anniversary of the first coup against Aristide in Haiti. That day, activists in 47 cities around the world, held an international day of solidarity with Haitian people who, once again, are suffering from the effects of a coup and a bloody occupation under the command of the UN. In Dublin, we were visited by a Haitian activist, Obed Alexis, who gave a conference and we participated in the picket organised by the Latin American Solidarity Centre, joining this international protest. We showed Haitian people that they are not on their own and that there are plenty of hands ready to help them in their struggle against the occupation and Latortue's dictatorship.