No U.S. intervention in Haiti!

SLL photo: Stephen Millies

More than a hundred people marched through the heart of Brooklyn, New York’s Haitian community, on Oct. 17 to protest plans to invade Haiti. Onlookers in cars honked their horns and raised fists in support.

Fanmi Lavalas New York and Komokoda called the demonstration. “Our people in Haiti are fighting and dying to return to the free & sovereign country our ancestors defeated their white enslavers to create in 1804,” said the call for the demonstration. “We will not let them fight alone.”

Carrying signs with pictures of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who defeated Napoleon’s troops, Haitians and their supporters marched down Nostrand Avenue to Flatbush Avenue, also known as “the Junction.”

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is maneuvering to send troops under the guise of the United Nations.

Such a Pentagon intervention would be in the footsteps of the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. U.S. Marines killed thousands of Haitians.

Among them was Charlemagne Péralte, the Haitian national hero leading the resistance against the occupation. He was assassinated on Nov. 1, 1919, by Marine Sgt. Herman Hanneken, who was wearing Blackface.

Hanneken was given the congressional Medal of Honor for this war crime and was eventually made a brigadier general.

Protesters gathered at Eastern Parkway and Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn, which is named after John van Nostrand, an owner of enslaved Africans. U.S. and European capitalists have never forgiven Haitians for overthrowing their slave masters.

In revenge, the wealthy and powerful have been attacking Haiti for 230 years and making it poor. As one sign read, “France owes Haiti $29 billion plus reparations.”

Wall Street owes billions, too. U.S. hands off Haiti!


Join the Struggle-La Lucha Telegram channel