Canada: Get Your Colonialist Claws Out of Haiti
July 19, 2021 – A mere nine days after Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, Canada and the Core Group deemed it their prerogative to designate the next Head of State. This act is one eloquent manifestation of their false interpretations of democracy and the rule of law. Green Left Canada condemns this prejudicial act and demands that the Government of Canada withdraw from the Core Group (US, Canada, France, UN and a few others who dictate Haiti policy choices and select its governments). Green Left also demands that Canada never again send in its troops and police under the duplicitous, colonialist guise of “building democracy.”
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first elected Head of State after 30 years of Duvalier dictatorships, made his decisions based on Haitian citizens’ needs and wishes rather than enact the economically and politically devastating prescriptions of the Core Group. Canada and its Core Group partners decided that Aristide had to go. The “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” was born in secretive meetings facilitated by Canada’s government. Plans were laid out and roles assigned to various members of the Core Group without whose consent no decision of consequence can be made and no colonialist command can be breached.
RELATED CONTENT: Canada’s Contribution to Political Corruption in Haiti
On February 29, 2004, Canadian special forces invaded Haiti’s airport. President Aristide, overthrown by this concocted-in-Canada coup d’état, was kidnapped and flown out of his country on a US plane. Hundreds of Canadian soldiers, RCMP and other police officers were later deployed. The Haitian police they trained arrested and/or assassinated thousands in the poorest neighbourhoods, particularly community-rooted economic equity and justice seeking leaders. These police thugs razed destitute neighborhoods to the ground and made life unbearable. Canada built prisons (filled with political dissidents) and erected police state structures that rapidly degenerated into webs of harassment, impoverishment, collective punishment, and crimes against humanity.
The Canadian-designed, US-driven impositions and their consequences for the Haitian people are relentless. The Core Group anointed a succession of presidents including the last two (Michel Martelly in 2011 and Jovenel Moïse in 2017) who have robbed their people and killed with absolute impunity. On June 29. 2021 alone, journalist Diego Charles, well-known activist Antoinette Duclair, and 13 other leaders were gunned down.
Green Left supports Haitian voices calling for Canada to get out of Haiti and stay out. “Solidarité Québec-Haïti stands with the Haitian people struggling to regain control of their territory and elect truly representative leaders, without interference from neocolonial forces. Haiti has been operating under foreign control since 2004,” Haitian-Canadian Jean Saint-Vil declared. “The same actors, including Canada, who destroyed the Haitian State cannot be brought back to save that State. We need a Haitian-to-Haitian national dialogue without white foreigners telling Black Haitians what to do.”
Lead writer: Pierre LeBlanc
Green Left will empower political and social voices and organizations to develop economic, political and social systems that support the livelihoods of all people, particularly equity-seeking groups, while respecting the limits of the earth’s carrying capacity and protecting the ecological diversity of our planet.
For more information on Green Left: https://greenleft.ca/en/about-us/
Featured image: Young Haitian protester carrying a cross with the US, Canadian and France flag on it. File photo.
PLB/OT/SL
Pierre LeBlanc
Pierre LeBlanc is a Canadian policy analyst and activist, has worked on a host of human justice and equality issues both domestically and internationally. Over 45 years, he has analysed, written and intervened on the policies and actions of the Canadian Government. Pierre LeBlanc was an Official International Observer in Caracas for the May 20 2018 Venezuelan presidential election. While at UNESCO in Paris and Palestine and Israel, he developed a Tier II Peace Dialogue Initiative with the Palestinian and Israeli civil societies. He has also worked on conflict prevention initiatives in Macedonia and Lebanon. Mr. LeBlanc is a national authority on Canada’s official language policies and has worked extensively on the development of societal infrastructure in his country.
