Political Significance of the Installation of CARICOM’s Presidential Council in Haiti

By Henriot Dorcent -May 8, 2024

Once again, the anti-slavery and anti-colonial republic of Haiti must renew the historic cry of Jean-Jacques Dessalines during the siege of Crête-à-Pierrot from Mar. 4 to 24, 1802. “Let those who want to become slaves of the French again leave the Fort; let those, on the contrary, who want to die as free men line up around me.”

The time has come to take a political stand, to sort the wheat from the chaff, to say “No” to political opportunism, to break with the practice of dividing political spoils. Progressives of all stripes must unite to fight against politicians’ capitulation to Western imperialism and to restore hope to the Haitian people in our fight to reconquer our sovereignty and national independence.

What is the true meaning of this shameful act of the Transitional Presidential Council’s installation on Apr. 25, 2024?

Haitian founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the painting “La Crête-à-Pierrot” by the artist P. Desmangles.

1) It is the consecration of our Haitian politicians’ capitulation and perpetuation of the neoliberal and neocolonialist capitalist system. The popular masses and its progressive vanguard must take note and remember all these gravediggers of our homeland who collaborated with Western imperialism through CARICOM.

2) This is confirmation of the policy of exclusion of the popular masses, now rising up in revolt against the terrorist policies of the neo-Duvalierist PHTK regime and its national and international allies. It is the expression of Western imperialism’s desire to deny the Haitian people’s right to self-determination.

3) It should also be the moment to denounce all the political, economic, social, and religious sectors which have collaborated with this formula of transition of the collective West through CARICOM and which are calling for a foreign military occupation to continue the plundering of our mineral resources.

Transitional Presidential Council Takes Charge in Haiti

This should also be an opportunity for all progressive Haitians to unite to proclaim the Haitian people’s right to self-determination and non-interference by foreigners in our national political affairs.

We should take this moment to adapt Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ cry at Crête à Pierrot to this situation of political, economic, social and humanitarian crisis by declaring:

“Let those who want to maintain the Western imperialism’s domination over Haiti join CARICOM’s presidential council. On the other hand, let those who fight for national sovereignty, national independence, and national liberation come together to defeat the collective West’s neocolonial plan.”

This parody of installing a presidential council inspired by a formula from the Caribbean Common Market countries makes us Haitians look like comedians. How can we imagine, even for a moment, a structure of the presidency created by decree taken by an interim Prime Minister? How can we imagine an interim Prime Minister, publishing a decree appointing the members of a presidential structure?

What a slap across the face of our independence heroes to have CARICOM, under Western colonialist countries’ supervision, imposing a transition formula on the first anti-slavery republic in the Western Hemisphere and on the American continent.

As Che Guevara said: “the duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution.”

Ernesto “Che” Guevara: “the duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution.”

The situation is grave! The time has come to denounce Haiti’s traitors and the collaborators of Western imperialism. The time has come for the awareness and mobilization of the popular masses to overthrow the neocolonial order and the anti-national state established by the North American and French imperialists and to establish instead relations of technical, economic, commercial, cultural, and military cooperation with all other countries fighting against Western imperialist domination.

The time has come to demand the restitution of Haiti’s “independence ransom” as we approach the 200^th anniversary of the capitulation of President Jean Pierre Boyer and his regime of former freedmen. Let us draw inspiration from our history, from the anti-colonialist and anti-slavery struggles of the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries, culminating in our national independence in 1804.

Let us take inspiration from Haiti’s national song of 1898: “Independence is ephemeral without the right to equality! Otherwise, everything becomes ephemeral; no order and no equality!”

(Haïti Liberté)