Every October 12, the peoples of the Americas remember the first arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World, in 1942, as a date that marks a milestone in the history of genocide, plunder and exploitation. Far from being a day of celebration, it is a day of struggle, of resistance to oblivion.

The Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James summarizes in two lines what happened that morning in 1492, in his book The Black Jacobins: “The first landing of Christopher Columbus in the New World was on the island of San Salvador, and after praising God he urgently inquired about gold”. A few years later, Father Las Casas, the first voice to condemn the cruelty to which the indigenous American communities were subjected to, would say that those first conquerors had arrived “with the cross in their hands and an insatiable thirst for gold in their hearts”.

It is impossible to deny the transcendence of what happened in 1492: the arrival of the values and appetites of the nascent capitalist society, the beginning of the globalization of the world and the conversion of human history into one single history, and even the division of the world as we know it today.

But the peoples of the Americas have never forgotten what Columbus’ arrival on the imposing caravels La Niña, La Pinta and Santa María signified. The colonizers exterminated 90% of the native inhabitants in the first century of the invasion alone, 90 million people. The Europeans wielded “the sword and the cross”, tore the bodies of the natives with swords and gunpowder, and ravaged their culture and identity using God as a pretext.

The Catholic religion was imposed by blood and fire, being a far-reaching instrument of domination, which to this day alienates and subdues. The invasion of America by Europeans -in the words of José Martí- constituted “the interference of a devastating civilization, two words that, being an antagonism, perfectly describe this process of humankind”.

In a joint statement, the Cuban institutions Casa de las Americas, the Office of the Programa Martiano and the World Council of the José Martí Project of International Solidarity did not miss other implications of this date, stating “The colonizers of the various powers also unleashed one of the most atrocious crimes known to mankind: that of the trafficking and enslavement of African peoples who were kidnapped and forced to work in the lucrative business of  plantations. An unknown amount numbering in the tens of millions of human beings were taken from that continent between the 16th and 19th centuries.”

It is not a question at this point of demonizing modernity, nor of spreading hatred about one country or another for its participation in or benefits obtained from domination and dispossession. The demand now must condemn all forms of colonialism, neocolonialism, and exploitation of which may be in different variations but still remains in the present time.

Proof of this are the constant hostilities to which some nations of the world are subjected to, such as Cuba, because the great powers do not tolerate a world order different from the one ruled by Capital. Proof of this is also the brutal genocide to which the Palestinian people are subjected to by Israel, which now threatens the entire region and the world. We must not forget the source of the evils afflicting humanity, the lust for power, inequality, just to mention a few of them.

“We must denounce any attempt to impose a rosy legend or glorify the perpetrators and ideologues of such atrocities. We, the inhabitants of our America, do not deny the past, nor will we renounce the heritage of the best of the so-called Western culture, which also belongs to us. But we vindicate the legacy of the oppressed and the resistance of those who rose up five centuries ago against the oppressors, and all those who, since then, have decided to cast their lot with the poorest on earth,” the joint statement concluded.

Alejandra Garcia is the Havana correspondent for Resumen Latinoamericano in English and an evening news anchor for Telesur in English.

Source: Resumen  Latinoamericano – English

Last Monday, Oct. 1, Mexico City became an immense festival celebrating the swearing-in of the first female president in the history of that nation.

The atmosphere on the way to the Plaza del Zócalo became more festive and crowded as one advanced along the adjacent avenues where at four in the afternoon, after being sworn in as president that same morning before the Congress of the Republic, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo would appear to share with the people. The crowd was such, even long before the scheduled time, that this writer could not take another step. The crowd, in a compact form, dragged me along.

The joy, the national pride, and above all the Hope, were reflected in the faces of each and everyone, people of all ages. They came from many of the 32 states of the nation and even from the Diaspora in the United States, political, community, and union organizations. Indigenous and Afro contingents, women, and schoolchildren. Each one with their distinctive organizational flags along with the Mexican tricolor national emblem. Huge puppets and musical bands, street vendors offering everything from succulent typical delicacies like the elotes (corn), to masks and dolls honoring López Obrador.

Huge banners thanked the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador for the achievements obtained during his six-year term as President and welcomed Claudia Sheinbaum. The most frequently sung slogan could be heard consistently with various rhythms and music: “It is an honor to be with Claudia today.” They addressed her informally, it was their beloved Claudia, the Claudia of the people. “Claudia, my friend, the people are with you,” they chanted.

Then, on the stage set up in the Zócalo, a procession of 133 Indigenous women authorities representing the five regions of the country came up to lead the cleansing and purification ceremony and hand over the sacred Staff of Command, a symbol of political and spiritual power, to the new President.

The sentiment that resonated in Mexican women that day was expressed by one of the authorities who, upon offering the staff of command, said to the President: “Sister Claudia, you are the voice of those of us who have not had a voice for a long time, of our people, you are the hope that we had, today Indigenous women are celebrating, but not only Indigenous women, but also Afromexican women, all women.”

After the ceremony, the President addressed the people who filled the Plaza to thank them and announce the objectives of her government. These have been summarized in a 100-point program that prioritizes the interests of the people, especially of the most disadvantaged communities, and the women who have been the object of so much violence. Faced with the wave of neoliberal privatization policies that is sweeping the world, Sheinbaum promised that there will be no privatizations.

This YouTube video collects the proposals in detail: youtube.com/watch?v=KmF32bGL0Vw.

But, who is Claudia Sheinbum Pardo? Can we trust this encouraging speech?

The President ran under the banner of the coalition Sigamos Haciendo Historia (Let’s Keep Making History), made up of Morena, the Labor Party, and the Green Ecologist Party and is the political successor of López Obrador, swearing to continue the progressive process of the Fourth Transformation of Mexico that he had started under his coalition Juntos Haremos Historia (Together We Will Make History). It is interesting to note that she surpassed the votes received by Obrador in 2018.

Claudia Sheinbaum is also a woman from a family of scientists who actively participated in the Mexican left. Her father was a member of the Mexican Communist Party. She is a mother and grandmother; has a PhD in environmental engineering, a master’s degree in energy engineering and a bachelor’s degree in physics, which qualifies her for the positions she has held so far: For example, in 2000 she served as Secretary of the Environment of the Federal District where she propelled several projects to benefit the environment.

In July 2018 she became the first woman elected head of government of Mexico City where she initiated programs that benefited the most disadvantaged strata. Among them, the community centers for economic, cultural and sports training called “Pilares,” educational centers such as the Rosario Castellanos Institute of Higher Studies, and the University of Health.

Her contributions to the benefit of the Mexican people are many and varied. Against gender violence she declared the Gender Violence Alert that resulted in care programs, including the construction of 710 kilometers of safe paths under the motto “Walk free, walk safely,” to guarantee the safety of women while walking throughout the city.

Her government program is very comprehensive and ambitious. Its fulfillment will be an extraordinary step towards a safer and happier future for all Mexicans. We can only wish all possible success to the Mexican people and their president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.

Long live Mexico!

Note: Joubert-Ceci was in Mexico City as a guest of the International Seminar The Parties and a New Society sponsored by the Labor Party.

“Over the past 65 years, China and Africa have forged unbreakable fraternity in our struggle against imperialism and colonialism, and embarked on a distinct path of cooperation in our journey toward development and revitalization. Together, we have written a splendid chapter of mutual assistance.” 

– Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, President of the People’s Republic of China

That message was delivered at the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). These powerful words against colonialism and imperialism were said in 2021, during a time when the COVID-19 pandemic especially affected Africa — a continent victim that has endured colonialism and imperialism, as well as the struggle for access to vaccine production. 

While the U.S. and Europe put profits before the needs of the victims of colonialism and imperialism, President Xi chose to put those words of solidarity into action.

In that address, President Xi pledged 1 billion vaccine doses to African countries, planning to achieve a 60% vaccination rate in Africa by 2022. In 2021, the cumulative total population coverage with ≥1 dose ranged by country from 0.3%. Xi announced that 600 million doses were donated and 400 million would be produced by joint production projects with Chinese companies and African countries – allowing a further boost in infrastructure and self-determination on the African continent.

The 2024 FOCAC Summit that ended Sept. 6 remained consistent in direction: “Following the Eighth FOCAC Ministerial Conference in Dakar in 2021, we have worked together to fully implement the nine programs and deliver on other outcomes of the meeting.”

The relationship is also mutual in benefit. Xi thanked the African countries that helped restore China’s lawful seat in the United Nations — last year marked the 50th anniversary of that achievement. China also benefits from Africa’s markets and the need for access to the continent’s lithium, cobalt, and other minerals.

Turn 180 degrees from this relationship of mutual benefit, and you land at the feet of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the imperialist financial institutions demanding austerity cutbacks for loans.

Nigeria is facing the worst economic crisis, with inflation levels not seen in almost three decades due to the austerity demands to secure IMF financing. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 26.5 million of Nigeria’s 220 million people are food insecure.

The primary architects of the IMF at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 — the United States and Britain — ensured that African, Latin American, and Asian self-determination would be denied. 

At the end of World War II, the Bretton Woods system established U.S. dominance of the world economy, with the U.S. dollar becoming the world’s primary reserve currency for international trade and finance. Most world trade is conducted in U.S. dollars, not local currencies.

The IMF does not contribute to the development of essential infrastructure within a country; instead, it focuses on privatization and significantly reducing social spending.

Zambia faced strong-arm pressure from Canada, the IMF, the World Bank, and First Quantum Minerals in the 1980s. The denial of crucial economic aid jeopardized Zambia’s survival. Consequently, the country was forced to privatize its nationalized copper mines in 1990, allowing companies like First Quantum to acquire them cheaply. Additionally, Zambia was forced to appoint a former vice president of the Bank of Canada as the governor of the Bank of Zambia. This guaranteed long-term poverty for Zambian workers … until now.

A turn around pointing upward

“China is ready to use its experience and help Zambia unlock its development potential,” said Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Han Jing at a press briefing held Sept. 12 in the Zambian capital of Lusaka after the end of the 2024 FOCAC Summit in Beijing.

Han said China was working with Zambia to make strategic plans for multiple means of power generation, storage, and distribution to help end the current power cuts and make Zambia an electricity exporter.

In 2013, China introduced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aimed at building infrastructure that links land and sea for the economic and social development of the Global South. In Africa, this includes railways in Kenya, an electric railway in Ethiopia, and hydropower stations in Uganda.

While the Belt and Road Initiative focuses on substantial infrastructure development through land and sea projects, the Digital Silk Road is about enhancing digital connectivity and fostering economic growth in a digital landscape for the countries involved. 

In 2022, the technology sector in BRI countries saw a remarkable surge in engagement, achieving a staggering 7536% growth compared to the previous year, according to the Africa-China Center for Policy and Advisory.

Many African nations resisted U.S. pressure from the Trump administration against engaging with China, the Africa Policy Research Institute reported. As of September 2021, approximately 70% of the 4G base stations in Africa were built by the Chinese company Huawei. This is alongside the contributions of other Chinese firms in the development of fiber optics throughout the continent.

Which explains why Huawei was targeted by the U.S. Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested on Dec. 1, 2018, at Vancouver International Airport by Canadian authorities. She was on a stopover from Hong Kong during a business trip to Mexico City. Meng faced allegations of violating U.S. sanctions that barred trade with Iran and was taken into custody, pending extradition to the United States.

It is not solely the Republicans or Trump who assume a godlike role in their decision-making. In 1998, President Clinton authorized a missile strike on the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Plant in Sudan, resulting in one fatality and injuring others. This action was based on false claims that the facility was manufacturing a VX nerve agent. The plant was crucial for producing essential malaria medication for the African continent. Although Clinton later admitted that the information was incorrect, the U.S. government refused to pay for the devastation caused and did not mind the rising malaria-related fatalities that followed.

At the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in Beijing, China outlined its plans to address malaria. According to the World Malaria Report 2023, Africa accounted for 94% of global malaria cases and 95% percent of malaria-related deaths in 2022.

Chinese scientists have developed solutions that resulted in a significant decrease in malaria cases and infection rates in the pilot regions following treatment. The World Health Organization is now collaborating with the CDC’s parasitic disease team to expand malaria projects in Tanzania, Zambia, and Senegal.

The Clinton bombing, which contributed to the spread of malaria in Africa, was answered by China’s action. It is important to note that during the 1960s, both the Soviet Union and China facilitated the liberation of 17 African nations from colonial rule by providing military support. In fact, the liberation fighters in former Rhodesia received military assistance from China, and one of the earliest freedom fighters to receive training there is the current President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Furthermore, Zimbabwe continues to receive military aid from China.

Threatening the world with rhetoric about remaining “lethal,” as Presidential candidate Kamala Harris stated at the DNC, underscores that it ultimately does not matter whether such threats originate from Republicans or Democrats when they enable racism and genocide. African people, like the Palestinian people, know how to fight back; they are not alone in their struggle for liberation.

Statement from ARE (Association of Raza Educators), Armadillos NUMM, Union del Barrio, Mecha SDCC, 43 San Diego. 

Until there is justice, there will be no peace! 

Ten years of struggle for truth and justice.

One hundred twenty months, 43 students, the Mexican government is guilty. We will neither forgive nor forget.

Early morning of Sept. 26, 2024, 10 years after the kidnapping and disappearance of 43 students, many gathered in front of the San Diego Mexican Consulate in solidarity with the families of the 43 missing students and the Mexican People. 

 “Ten Years of Struggle for Truth and Justice”— Statement from the protest organizers. 

On the night of Sept. 26, and in the early morning of Sept. 27, 2014, a criminal organization with the support of municipal, state, and federal law enforcement (mostly the army) kidnapped and disappeared 43 students and murdered 6 more people in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico.

The president, Enrique Pena Nieto, wanted to close the case quickly. To do so, he developed a theory known as “the historical truth,” which was riddled with falsehoods and rejected by national and international experts. 

AMLO (President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) promised to resolve the case when he met with the relatives of the 43 while he was still campaigning and then reaffirmed his promise as president. Now, at the end of his mandate, we denounce AMLO for not honoring his promise, for sabotaging the investigation, and for protecting the accomplices in the disappearance of the 43, the armed forces.

ALMO had the time, resources, and authority to complete the investigation and bring those responsible to justice. As AMLO spoke convincingly with the mothers and relatives of the 43, everyone hoped that the boys’ fate would be known and the guilty would also be punished. Unfortunately, none of this happened since, from the beginning, it was clear that the president was seeking to prolong the investigation and at the same time protect the military forces. That wasn’t all.

The president sabotaged the investigation when he hinted at the work of Omar Gomez Trejo, the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation, to the point that he was forced to resign. This happened, in September 2022. In addition, the work of the Interdisciplinary Group on Independent Experts (GIEI), which had done so much during the previous government, ended once the Mexican army, with the support of AMLO, refused to hand over important documents. These documents, in addition to helping to find the students, demonstrated the participation of the armed forces in their disappearance.

In his attempt to protect the armed forces, AMLO accused the representatives of the families of the 43 of obeying foreign interests and being part of an international campaign to discredit the armed forces. AMLO forgets, very conveniently, that if anything characterizes the Mexican armed forces, it is their repressive and unpatriotic actions. The list of the army’s repressive and murderous conduct is endless. We will only mention the massacre of Tlatlaya in 2014, and that of Tlatelolco in 1968, and the “death flights” between 1974 and 1998, which consisted of throwing more than 1,500 social justice fighters into the ocean from an Israeli-made plane owned by the Mexican Air Force.

The undersigned organizations and groups are aware that all struggles in all corners of the world are the same struggle. For this reason, we reaffirm our solidarity with Palestinians and demand the immediate total departure of the Israeli genocidal forces from the occupied territories, the boycott of all kinds against the state of Israel, the international trial of its leaders, and a definitive solution to the Zionist occupation, including recognition of Palestinian demands.

Pena Nieto’s  “historic truth” did not pass the test of history. AMLO’s protection of the armed forces and the baseless accusations that go hand in hand with the former has become another “historical truth” 10 years after the state crime; there is no truth, there is no truth, there is no justice. Claudia Sheinbaum, remember that your election was possible thanks to the participation of the people and a government of the people is needed — your turn.

THEY WERE TAKEN ALIVE, WE WANT THEM BACK, ALIVE!

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, Palestine Will Be Free!

ARE (Association of Raza Educators), Armadillos NUMM, Union del Barrio, Mecha SDCC, 43 San Diego (Facebook and Instagram) Email: 43sandiego43@gmail.com

The Nigerian government was clearly very worried by the scale and support for the protests in early August against its anti-human policies of increased fuel prices, higher electric tariffs, unpaid low minimum wages, higher school fees, higher tax rates, higher food prices, higher transport costs and bad governance. They hope that heavy repression will stop future protests against hunger, higher petrol prices and bad governance.

The state tortured dozens and hundreds remain in detention. Some are being held well beyond the constitutional limit of 48 hours before going to court. The High Court in Abuja gave the police a further 60 days for holding over 70 young men from Kano. They are accused of waving Russian flags, that became the symbol of resistance in Kano. This is clearly not illegal in Nigeria.

In Abuja, another 10 people are also being held for the serious crime of treason, incitement to mutiny and levying war against the state. This is despite the complete lack of any evidence for these crimes. They are being represented by Femi Falana who has led and won the defence for four previous treason trials.

The President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, was detained by the secret police for 12 hours on 9 September 2024 and stopped from attending the Trade Union Congress meeting in Britain.  The NLC gained his release by organising for an indefinite general strike. The NLC in their initial press release over the detention of their President correctly said:

We equally demand that the state frees all Nigerians languishing in various prisons around the country for exercising their democratic rights to protest in the #endbadgovernance rallies around the country.

Unfortunately, these other demands were immediately forgotten with the release of Joe Ajaero the same day. Another trade union leader is still being held in prison after being picked up at 2am six weeks ago.

Eleojo Opaluwa, of the electrician’s union (NUEE) is being held with nine others in Kuje Prison. They face a range of serious charges including conspiracy to commit treason, inciting to mutiny and organising for a war against the state (each charge carry’s the death penalty). These charges arise from alleged organising and participating in the #endbadgovernance and #endhunger protests in early August.

However, the police case is extremely weak, especially as the ten detainees hardly know each other, despite being accused of conspiracy. Five lived in Abuja, but the other five were brought from Kano for waving Russian flags.

Six of the detainees are Muslim and the rest are Christians. They range in age from 21 to 51 years. Five are in their twenties and two are in their fifties. Nine are men and one is a woman. It would be hard to find a more diverse group of people.

The only thing that appears to unite the five detainees from Abuja is that they were all members of a WhatsApp group that was created on 27 July.  They are not all admin members of the group, and some of the admin members have not been accused by the police. There were around 450 members of the WhatsApp group at its height with around 30 having left.

The backgrounds of the five detainees from Abuja are:

• Michael Adaramoye (28 years) was brought up in a Christian family. He attended Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. Michael is a writer and content creator by profession. He has committed his intellect and youthful energy to contributing to the building of a better society.

• Mosiu Sodiq (29 years) is a young practicing Muslim. He was born and raised in Lagos. He has a diploma from Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin. He is a graphics designer and printer based in Abuja where he has lived for more than half a decade.

• Adeyemi Abiodun Abayomi (34 years) is a devoted Christian and family man with a three-year-old daughter. He was brought up in Kaduna and graduated from Ekiti State University (TUNEDIK) with a degree in Computer Science in 2016.  He ran Iva Valley Books for the last year.

• Eleojo Opaluwa (50 years) is a Christian from Kogi State. He is married with four children. He is graduate, he also has a master’s degree in criminology from the National Open University, Abuja. His first child is at university and the other three are still in school. He is the organizer for the Nigerian Union of Electrical Employees (NUEE) in FCT. He is also Vice Chair of NLC for Kogi State.

• Angel Love Innocent (51 years) is a Christian. She has one 16-year-old son and works in the real estate business in Abuja and has several other business interests.

The names and ages of the five detainees brought from Kano are: Buhari Lawal 21 years; Bashir Bello 21 years; Suleiman Yakubu, 28 years; Abdulsalam Zubairu 37 years; and Nuradeen Khamis 47 years.

The economy in Nigeria has grown well, especially over the period 2000 to 2015. As a result, the GDP is now at least five times larger than it was at the turn of the Millennium. However, all this additional wealth, and some, has been looted by the tiny corrupt elite. The majority of the population are now significantly poorer than they were at the end of the military era in 1999. This growth in poverty has accelerated massively in the last 15 months. This is primarily due to the new Government allowing the price of petrol to shoot up and massive devaluation of the local currency.

The trade unions have a militant tradition, but their action is increasingly not meeting the required demands. As a result, for example, the real value of the minimum wage (which greatly influences all public sector salaries) has halved over the last five years. In 2019, the then new level of the minimum wage could buy 200 litres of petrol. At the end of July this year, when the recent increase of the minimum wage became law, it would only buy 100 litres of petrol. Recent shortages mean it will only buy around 50 litres or less.

The new president of the NLC, the main trade union centre, Joe Ajaero, has called at least half a dozen general strikes since he took up his position in February last year. However, all the strikes were called off before they were due to start or after not much more than a day.

The mass protests at the beginning of August showed the extent of the hunger in the land. In some places all the young men from a whole community joined massive almost spontaneous demonstrations. This was met with horrendous government repression. Around 40 protesters were murdered by the police and other security forces being shot dead on the protests and tear gas was widely used; perhaps 1,500 arrested and detained with  no legal representation or access to the courts.

Millions of Nigerians supported the #endbadgovernance/#endhunger Protests from 1 August. It is this that has upset the government. The police appear to have picked up a random group of people to be punished for the activities of hundreds of thousands – it is obviously beyond the capacity of the Nigerian state to arrest every demonstrator. . We can only hope that all detained demonstrators  are found not guilty in the near future.

Many other detainees are being held, especially in the far northern towns and cities from Sokoto in the West, through Kano to Maiduguri in the east. In one court case in mid-September, 37 protesters were released after up to six weeks in jail and 48 were given quite tough bail conditions (paying the equivalent of three years of the minimum wage).

Further protests are being called from 1 October and some local ones are still taking place. Next time these protests need the full support from the NLC.  A coalition of the masses in the streets and a robust general strike can easily defeat this government. Then we can begin to see the reduction of hunger, poverty and inequality across Nigeria.

Source: ROAPE

Calling Haitian migrants “pet eaters” is racist and dehumanizing. So is the continued attack on Haitian sovereignty by the U.S. and its global allies.

The anti-Haitian utterances by the Republican presidential ticket unleashed an avalanche of racist memes and jokes about Haitians, Haitian migrants, and U.S. citizens of Haitian descent. It began with Ohio senator and Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance’s tweet claiming – falsely – that “Haitian illegal immigrants” were “draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.” Vance continued the lie by asserting, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” Donald Trump was quick to follow up and double down on Vance’s slanderous comments. In the televised presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Trump insinuated that Haitian migrants were “eating the pets, eating the dogs, eating the cats” of Ohio’s citizens.

Soon, hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world gleefully joined in, contributing to a racist pile-on that has seen a violent backlash against Springfield’s Haitian population. Bomb threats have caused the closure of local schools, Springfield’s city hall, and other locations. Families have been attacked. Many Haitians have been afraid to leave their homes. Others have fled the small Ohio town. It did not matter that the story was fake: it had started when a racist white woman, Erika Lee, posted a false story about her friend’s Haitian neighbors supposedly stealing and eating cats, and was deliberately amplified by a nazi group in Ohio in an effort to demonize Haitians.

The nazi efforts to demonize Haitians clearly worked. And it worked, in part, because it was buoyed by a long-standing, everyday racist anti-Haitian ideology in the United States – and in the West. In fact, while Ohio’s Haitian migrants have since received sympathetic attention from the corporate media (who have run stories about Haitian migrants as ideal factory workers and dignified individuals with a proud history), it is more typical of this same media to attack, slander, and demonize Haiti and Haitian people.

With so many people expressing surprise and disdain about the racist vitriol against Haitian migrants in the U.S., one could be forgiven for not knowing that this is not the first, or second, or third time that Haitian migrants have been slandered with racist vitriol. Slandering Haiti has been a pastime for the white west since the late 1700s, when enslaved Africans rose up to fight their white enslavers and won, disrupting white supremacy and changing the definition of “freedom” and the “human” in the process. 

During the early years of Haiti’s existence, Haitians were disparaged as “barbaric,” “savages,” and “cannibals.” The New York Times was notorious for casting Haiti as a wasteland of Black savagery. During the first U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934), it quoted the administrative commander of the U.S. military forces, H.S. Knapp who said: “if Haiti were now left to herself there would be a slipping back into barbarism.” This is language describing Haiti from a 1915 editorial : “a weary list of toy kings, emperors, presidents, of revolutions, exiles, suicides, slaughters, corruption, a civilization…which has been sinking, and is brutal and permeated with magical rites.” Here is a January 4, 1921 headline from that same “paper of record:” “Natives in Haiti Ate a Marine Officer.” In a 1920 National Geographic article titled “Haiti and Its Regeneration by the United States,” the author writes of “the sacrifice of children and animals to the mumbo jumbos of local wizards.” And on and on.

The vilification of Haitian people in the western press, and from politicians and laypeople, has continued unabated. In the 1980s, Haitian migrants fleeing the U.S.-backed Duvalier dictatorship and arriving in South Florida were described as dirty “boat people,” a notorious stereotype that had an inordinate impact on Haitian migrant school children. In 1983, Haitian people were accused of being “HIV/AIDS carriers” and listed by Center for Disease Control as the only racial/ethnic group (of the “4-H Club”) at risk of AIDS: homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and Haitians. Indeed, it is this vicious lie that Haitians were AIDS carriers that, in the early 1990s, the U.S. used to turn its naval base at Guantanamo Bay into an open air prison for Haitian asylum seekers while denying them due process. 

In 1994, then-Congressman Joe Biden, had this to say about Haiti: “If Haiti—a God-awful thing to say—if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot to our interests.”

Over the years, Haitian people have been castigated as having made a “deal with the devil” because their religious practices were supposedly responsible for the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. They were called “bandits” when fighting the first U.S. occupation of their country and “gangs” when protesting the Core Group-installed Prime Minister in 2021 and 2022. Haitians are now seen primarily as “gang members,” and, as recently as spring of 2024, as “cannibals.” In a way, the current smear that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are “dog and cat eaters,” pales in comparison to the western media frenzy, over the past three years, around the claim that Haiti is a cesspool of violence with “gang” members cannibalizing people.

In today’s political environment, the outrage over the racist lie that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are stealing and eating people’s pets has been filtered through partisan presidential politics. All responses purportedly on behalf of Haitian people have therefore focused on racism as a unique feature of the Republican party and white conservatives and fascists since it was JD Vance and Donald Trump that catapulted the “eating pets” lie into the national spotlight. As such, it is not surprising to see the corporate media actually conducting actual journalism – questioning the racist claims against Haitian migrants in Ohio, sending reporters to speak with local communities, etc. Meanwhile, Democratic Party operatives have treated the racist charges against the Haitian migrants as a godsend, using the controversy to point to Republicans as the always-already-unrepentant white supremacists.

But what should we call Biden’s actions in September 2021? After right-wingers protested that the Texas-Mexico border was being “invaded” by “hordes” of Haitian asylum seekers, Biden authorized the deployment of hundreds of agents from Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, and the Department of Defense. Within days, the Biden administration went on to deport thousands of these migrants without internationally mandated due process. This action by the Biden regime was so extreme that a reporter from the Jamaican newspaper, The Gleaner called it, “one of the swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants and refugees from the United States in decades.” In fact, during his first term, Biden has deported more Haitian people than the two terms of “deporter-in-chief” Obama and Trump’s one term. How is Joe Biden’s record of deporting Haitian asylum seekers (often without due process), which is worse than Obama’s two terms and Trump’s one term, any less racist than the racist lie about Haitian people eating pets? The pictures of the dehumanizing treatment of Haitian asylum seekers being chased by white patrols on horseback should remain etched in our memories of the Biden presidency.

But do you know what is most racist and dehumanizing? The U.S. usurpated Haitian sovereignty through non-stop meddling, intervention, and occupation.

As the republicans are demonizing Haitians as “pet thieves” and “cat eaters,” the U.S., under the democratic Biden regime, is thieving Haiti’s autonomy and devouring Haiti’s sovereignty by leading a whole-scale foreign military invasion of Haiti and planning for long term occupation. In the days since the racist pet-eating rumor surfaced, U.S. military planes flew in police and soldiers from Jamaica and Belize to add to the 400 Kenyan soldiers already in Haiti as the Blackface cover for its invasion and occupation. This comes after the U.S. has already begun building a security perimeter around the international airport in the capital city, a project that has displaced thousands of families. At the same time, the U.S. has circulated a draft resolution to the UN Security Council about turning its mercenary mission in Haiti into a full-fledged UN “peacekeeping” operation. In other words, MINU.S.TAH 2.0.

Where is the outrage about the intensification of the U.S. occupation of Haiti? Where is the outrage over the ongoing occupation by the Core Group of Haiti; over the full destruction of the Haitian state only to install an entire puppet government willing to do the bidding of the U.S., including approving foreign military occupation? Where is the outrage over a U.S.-led foreign military occupation where the mercenaries brought to occupy the land have absolute immunity over their actions in Haiti? Where is the outrage over the racist assumptions and tropes guiding white western violation and occupation of Haiti – that Haitians are violent and dumb people who cannot be allowed to rule themselves?

I would argue that the lack of outrage – or the lack of acknowledgment – of the U.S.’s illegal, continuing, and violent occupation of Haiti is precisely because the world has accepted as normal that Haitian sovereignty can be dismissed. In fact, the white west has been explicit in their views that Haitians do not deserve sovereignty. For example, former Canadian Denis Paridis, who participated in the  2003 “Ottawa Initiative” that led to the 2004 coup d’etat against Haiti’s democratically elected president, justified the west’s actions by asking of Haiti: “Is state sovereignty immutable?” And, according to Haitian-Canadian activist, Jean Saint-Vil, the Deputy General of the Organization of American States, Luigi Einuadi, lamented that “The real problem with Haiti is that the ‘International Community’ is so screwed up and divided that they are actually letting Haitians run Haiti.”

It is not only JD Vance and Trump and their Republican friends who have been racist towards Haiti and the Haitian people. It is all the other people who – either by their silence or active complicity – have consented to the ongoing U.S. meddling and push for a full occupation of Haiti. It is those who parrot the racist descriptions of the white media about Haiti being ungovernable. It is those who declare that “something has to be done” because of the “gang problem” in Haiti, as if gang membership is in Haitian DNA. It is those who focus their racist vitriol on poor Black Haitian people while remaining silent on the nonBlack oligarchs in Haiti who collude with U.S. and western governments to fuel violence in the country. It is those who do not understand that the crisis of Haiti is one of U.S./western imperialism and that the imperialists – the U.S., Core Group, and UN operatives – are the biggest gangsters and the most ferocious cannibals operating in the country.

Jemima Pierre is an editor and contributor to Black Agenda Report, the Haiti/Americas Co-Coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace, and a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Source: Black Agenda Report

Before a television audience of 67.1 million viewers, former U.S. President Donald Trump uttered racist, shameless lies against Haitian immigrants living in Ohio, accusing them of stealing and eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs, labeling them as “criminals” and “terrorists.”

On Sep. 12, two days after the Sep. 10 presidential debate between Trump and his Democratic Party rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, the thinly-veiled racist threats sparked bomb threats against Springfield, Ohio companies where the workers are predominantly Haitian. The same day a bomb threat closed down Springfield’s City Hall, where the mayor calls the Trump campaign’s assertions baseless. On Sep. 14, bomb threats also put into lockdown two Springfield hospitals.

Haitians are now organizing their response. Migrant defense organizations like the Haitian Bridge Alliance have begun to raise their voices. Haitians rallied on Sep. 12 in the heavily Haitian town of Elmont, Long Island, just east of New York City, in protest against Trump’s false allegations and those of Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance.

On Sep. 17, about 60 Haitians and their supporters, as well as New York City Councilwomen Mercedes Narcisse and Farah Louis, rallied in front of St. Jerome Catholic Church at the corner of Nostrand and Newkirk Avenues in Brooklyn, NY. Organized by Children for Change International, the rally was titled “Immigrants United Against Hate.”

The largest mobilization is planned for Sep. 18 at the Nassau Coliseum at 1255 Hempstead Turnpike in Uniondale, NY on Long Island, where Trump will be holding a campaign rally. The Haitians, other immigrants, and their supporters will hold a  counter-demonstration that will gather at 3 p.m. at 1110 Hempstead Turnpike in Uniondale, at the corner of Uniondale Avenue.

Meanwhile, in Haiti, politicians and the corrupt bourgeoisie are doing everything to maintain their class privileges and keep the popular masses in the most abject misery. This is our best opportunity to organize ourselves to be better able to respond to these false allegations which, once again, besmirch our dignity and belittle us like old clothes worn out by misery. They try to make us forget our ancestors’ glorious anti-colonialist and anti-slavery struggles.

Those nostalgic for the slave system want to erase from the humanity’s history the strong Haitian people’s example which inspires us to be resistant, human, good, free, generous, altruistic, and socialist.

The time has truly come for us to organize ourselves in Haiti and North America to have our rights respected and stop being treated as pariahs. We Haitians, the children of Dessalines, Capois La Mort, Christophe, and Pétion, cannot hand over our destiny to the hypocritical politicians of the U.S.’s Democratic Party. We must build our own autonomous and independent organizations to fight against both flavors of racism: Republican and Democrat. We must not surrender our struggle to the hypocritical, two-faced half of the U.S. capitalist duopoly, the Democrats. We can only count on ourselves!

There is a dictum: States have no friends, only interests, to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle, among others. Fortunately, people do have friends, who help them defend their interests. A rainbow of peoples around the world have brought their active solidarity to the Haitian people in the face of mankind’s great enemy.

Let’s stop being afraid! Let’s organize ourselves to better defend our interests and our country! We are more than what we have become today. We are the true freedom fighters; we were the first to abolish slavery; let us continue in the footsteps of our ancestors, to fight against exploitation and capitalist domination. These racist actions and remarks degrade those who carry out and utter them. Let us not submit to either of the two parties which just represent the two tactics of the U.S. capitalist system. The Republicans are openly racist, while the Democrats are just as racist but it is only revealed in their practice by their slyness and hypocrisy.

Let us organize ourselves by ourselves and for ourselves! Let us not be manipulated by the bigwigs of U.S. politics. Our most basic rights are flouted. We are the first victims of U.S. racism, of economic hyperinflation, of all kinds of discrimination (both racial and social). We are paid the lowest wages because of our social origin. We are victims of police brutality. We pay high prices for rent without subsidies. The cost of living increases at a rate significantly higher than the increase in our salary. We pay more for the purchase of a car and vehicle insurance premiums. Our wages are lower than any other category of immigrants, and we pay more than them for all our needs.

Nonetheless, we must win over and join with other immigrant workers as well as U.S. workers in our common class struggle.

The time to revolt has come both in Haiti and in the USA. After these malicious remarks from Donald Trump and JD Vance, if we do not rise up, it will be unforgivable. We must rise up against intervention, corruption, and insecurity in Haiti and against racial and social discrimination in the U.S..

Let us organize our forces everywhere to better fight against the capitalist system with its scourges of racism and sexism and the package of “identity politics” that liberals and Democrats use to hide this monstrous system of war, oppression, and exploitation.

Haitian progressives, let us unite to struggle for Haiti’s national liberation.

Liberty or Death! Homeland or Death!

Source: Haïti Liberté

On Aug. 23, multiple pro-Palestinian Telegram channels were banned across Europe, including the “Palestine Archive” channel and the “Resistance News Network” (RNN). A week before the ban, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that “Telegram has proved a massive challenge for Israel since the start of the war.”

Telegram has been a critical platform in the ongoing information war regarding the situation in Gaza. It allows supporters of the Palestinian cause to share information about Israeli actions easily and to highlight the resistance efforts of Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran.

These channels, not its encrypted communications, were the focus of the New York Times special report on Sept. 10 aimed at taking down Telegram. Telegram has a unique service called Channels, which is used to broadcast public messages to channel subscribers. Anyone can set up a Telegram channel, and anyone can subscribe to the channels.

Haaretz noted, “While many tech firms have streamlined mechanisms through which states can reach out to them” to censor content, “Telegram is considered the least cooperative of them all.”

Telegram founder arrested by French police

On Aug. 24, the day after the Europe-wide ban on pro-Palestinian channels, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested by French police. Following four days of intense interrogation, he was brought before a court and charged on multiple counts. Currently awaiting trial, Durov has been released on $5.5 million bail, is required to report to the French police twice weekly, and is prohibited from leaving the country. Additionally, a warrant has been issued for his brother, the co-founder of Telegram.

French authorities have framed this action as a standard cybercrime operation to combat criminal activities. President Macron has reassured the public that the arrest is “not political.”

However, the French government and its allies appear to be seeking access to the extensive user data stored on Telegram, aiming to establish a legal precedent and send a strong message that any messaging platform refusing government intervention will be punished. It is an entirely “political” attack.

The charges against Durov mirror the targeting of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and the Uhuru 3 as part of a broader campaign of political persecution. Under the guise of anti-terrorism and crime prevention, the imperialist powers are using repressive tactics against those who dare to oppose their actions at home and abroad.

Snowden revealed tech giants work with U.S. intelligence

In 2013, following Edward Snowden’s revelations that tech giants had granted U.S. intelligence extensive backdoor access on platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook, Durov established Telegram as a secure messaging alternative.

A leaked 2021 FBI document confirms that Telegram is the most opaque messaging platform regarding what the agency can legally access. 

As a result of its consistent refusal to disclose user information, Telegram has experienced intermittent bans in 31 countries since 2015. Telegram has emerged as a vital platform for organizing protests and revolutionary movements.

Its appeal lies in the fact that it has largely evaded external pressures. The platform has 950 million monthly active users, a significant increase from 500 million in 2021.

In the Ukraine war, Telegram serves as a crucial communication tool. The CIA-funded Radio Free Europe reports that almost everyone in Ukraine tunes into Telegram channels to get the news, particularly the reports from Russia.

Telegram has become the primary news source, offering real-time battlefield updates that don’t always align with the Biden-Zelensky propaganda that fills Kiev-based media. The Ukrainian government tried to ban Telegram last year.

A note about encrypted communications

Telegram’s Channels are a free and open communications tool that is available to anyone. The messages sent through the channels are encrypted in transit between your device and Telegram’s servers and cannot be read by any form of unauthorized access to the transmission. But the messages are stored unencrypted on Telegram’s servers, and theoretically the content can be accessed by Telegram, or if compelled, it can be shared with authorities. 

Many reports on Telegram confuse the encryption during transmission with end-to-end encryption used in truly private conversations. In end-to-end encryption, the messages are encrypted in transmission and on the server and cannot be read by anyone.

Telegram’s Secret Chats offers end-to-end encryption, but this can’t be used on the channels.

WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption for all personal messages, group chats, voice calls, and video calls. What WhatsApp calls a “channel” is not free and open, requiring a business account to use it fully. However, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, which collects a lot of information from what people do on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is reportedly programmed to identify key words in sentences, like “birthday” or “travel,” and send them to Facebook’s servers to be processed for advertising before encrypting messages. Facebook and, therefore, WhatsApp also work with the police and government whenever requested, unlike Telegram.

Signal is a messaging app often promoted as an alternative to Telegram. All communications on Signal are end-to-end encrypted, including its channels. Not frequently mentioned, Signal collects some user metadata, including user phone number, device information, and connections made. 

Signal was and remains very prominently used and promoted by dissidents and protesters backed by the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Signal itself was developed by the Open Technology Fund, another U.S. government project. The app was initially used for U.S. intelligence operations globally. WikiLeaks documents from 2017 revealed that the CIA has a backdoor to bypass Signal’s encryption. 

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of several French cities on Saturday, September 7, to protest against what has been dubbed as “electoral theft” committed by President Emmanuel Macron, who appointed far-right Michel Barnier as the prime minister of the country despite the fact that Barnier’s party won on;y 5% of the vote in the latest general elections.

The protests were called by the center-left coalition New Popular Front (NFP) in more than 150 cities across France.

The protests were organized in opposition to Macron‘s appointment of Les Républiques party’s Michel Barnier as prime minister, a decision that has been widely criticized by the French left, which has called it a coup against the people’s will, as it was the NFP that had received the maximum number of seats in the July 7 parliamentary elections but had failed to win an absolute majority.

Michel Barnier, 73, is a veteran of French and European politics, historically associated with the right-wing Les Républiques party. With a career spanning more than four decades, Barnier has held senior positions both in France and Brussels (European Union).

Demonstrations have been going on in several cities across the country. In Paris, the iconic Bastille Square has been the epicenter of the protests, from where thousands marched towards the Place de la Nation.

“We will not give up until he is removed from office,” said Andy Kerbrat, a member of parliament for the NFP, who took part in a huge rally in Nantes, a city in western France.

Although the protest is supported by La France Insoumise (LFI), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the ecologists, the Socialist Party (PS) has decided not to officially participate. However, some local sections of the party have joined the demonstrations.

The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) has also distanced itself from this mobilization, concentrating its efforts on a labor strike planned for October.

In addition to the protests, the NFP has launched impeachment proceedings against Macron in parliament, arguing that Barnier’s appointment does not recognize the results of the legislative elections, where the NFP emerged as the largest bloc with 182 seats.

Macron’s party came in second with 168 seats, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally won 143.

The discontent is emerging in a context of deep polarization in France. Latest opinion polls show that 74% of the French population believes that Macron has not respected the will of the people expressed in the ballots.

Amid political uncertainty, new Prime Minister Michel Barnier faces the challenge of forming a government and presenting a finance bill before October, all under the threat of censure by the opposition. The next few weeks will be decisive for France’s political future.

(La Radio del Sur) by Magdalena Valdez

Translation: Orinoco Tribune