Black workers on Haiti, Katrina

The following edited statement, titled “The people of Haiti are suffering: They cry out for humanitarian aid, democracy, sovereignty and human rights,” was written and distributed by the Black Workers League, based in Rocky Mount, N.C., on Jan. 18.

The earthquake in Haiti has caused massive devastation and suffering. More than 100,000 people are dead, and many more are homeless and without food. This human tragedy is weighing heavy on the hearts and minds of people throughout the world.

Nations and people on every continent are sending humanitarian aid of doctors, food, clothing and rescue workers to help the Haitian people recover from this disaster. Haiti needs aid from every country willing to give it.

We must call on our unions, faith institutions, organizations and all levels of U.S. government to provide humanitarian aid. But we must also demand that the politics of U.S. capitalist greed and domination not decide who can provide aid and who controls Haiti’s plan for reconstruction.

The important aid from Cuba and Venezuela — two countries in the Americas whose good works the U.S. government wants to hide — must be applauded not only for their immediate response to the earthquake but for their long term commitment to aid countries that are oppressed by U.S. and global economic policies that place profits over human needs. We must demand that the Haitian people and their democratically elected government have the right to decide their future. This is an issue of international human rights.

The world remembers how the U.S. government under Bush failed the people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; taking almost a week to begin a rescue effort; sending troops to protect the property of the corporations and the most affluent. Billions of dollars in no-bid contracts went to corporations and worker rights were suspended so that companies could exploit the workers. Now five years later, thousands of Black and poor people are still unable return to their communities because the government fails to build affordable housing and to create living wage jobs. President Obama’s appointment of former presidents Clinton and Bush to supervise the rescue in Haiti is a BAD SIGN. It sends a message that the politics of capitalist greed and domination will guide the U.S. decisions on the recovery and reconstruction in Haiti.

U.S. policies in Haiti since its independence in 1804 have kept the country poor and prevented the society from developing the capacity to respond to natural disasters. The U.S. has also undermined efforts by the Haitian people to elect and maintain democratic government.

In 2004 during the Bush administration, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected President of Haiti, was kidnapped by U.S. Marines and forced into exile in another country. He has not been allowed to return and even now to help his people to recover from the disaster.

Bush and Clinton don’t speak for the masses of African Americans, the working class and the poor and people of good will in the U.S. who are giving aid to the Haitian people. They speak for the big banks, corporations, racism and capitalist greed who want to continue to exploit and oppress Haiti.

Haiti was the first Black republic in the Americas and became a leading force in the struggles to end slavery. The Haitian Revolution that brought about Haiti’s independence from France was also a blow to the BIG LIE of racism and white supremacy that said that Black people were inferior and could not form and run a nation.

The world must not allow the continuing oppression of Haiti and the suffering of the Haitian people. The recovery from this disaster must include a reconstruction that not only leads to the development of the country in ways that benefit the masses of people. It must provide Temporary Protective Status to the Haitian people in the U.S. who are not U.S. citizens, and must stop undermining the Haitian people’s efforts to establish a real democracy and to be a sovereign nation.

President Obama should dump Bush and Clinton!