Photograph by Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 2.0

Okap (Cap Haitien), Haiti.

On May 28th, the New York Times announced: “A Desperate Haiti Turns to Erik Prince, Trump Ally, in Fight Against Gangs.” The article revealed that the mercenary for hire, Prince, with a long track record of illegal interventions and egregious human rights violations in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the globe, has already been secretly working in Port-au-Prince alongside other private security contractors.

While the colonial overseers are quick to point out how corrupt their underling Haitian government is, they turn a blind eye to their own incestous billionaire cabinet. Prince has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial contributions to Trump’s campaigns and is the brother of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s first Secretary of Education.

As has been widely documented, Blackwater had a long track record of aiding U.S. imperial missions. They were a close collaborator with Zionism and are invested in colonial projects in Africa. Blackwater trained Colombian soldiers for the princes of the United Arab Emirates to use as they pleased. Prince is active in the narco-democracy of Ecuador where the richest family in the country just stole the elections.

Deploying mercenaries to carry out U.S. foreign policy objectives is nothing new for both the Democratic and Republic governments of the United States of Imperialism, but the idea is gaining more traction and Haiti is a perfect testing ground. Beyond a tiny, fractured, timid solidarity movement, who cares about this “shithole country,” long misrepresented by the racist, shrewd U.S. mainstream media, as a hopeless case of Black people unable to govern themselves? Only last month, the Trump administration tested the waters promising to send Haiti’s gang leaders to Nayib Bukele’s maximum security dungeon, known by its initials, CECOT.

As imperialism prepares its next round of machinations against the inheritors of the 1804 revolution, it is vital for anti-imperialists to have a clear view of the balance of class forces in Haiti today.

Who are the two “sides” dueling for power? Viv Ansanm (VA) is a sophisticated confederation of paramilitary gangs in Port-au-Prince. The underfunded, kleptocratic Haitian National Police (PNH), backed by the U.S. ‘s MSS mission and now Erik Prince’s mercenaries are on the other side. The unarmed, besieged and traumatized masses are trapped in the middle. Understanding where their class interests lie will help clarify who “the good and bad guys” are in Haiti.

Hunger, Displacement and Trauma

Eric Prince’s recycled Blackwater is invading an already occupied Haiti.

With their origins in the Clinton-annoited Michel Martelly dictatorship from 2011-2016, paramilitary gangs have raped, looted and burned their way through the alleyways and ghettos of Port-au-Prince. “Viv Ansanm” is the name of the paramilitary alliance which today wages war on the masses’ sovereignty. According to the popular movement I have worked with since 1998, VA plays a role today similar to their marine predecessors, who wielded the latest U.S. weapons of their time to subdue the restless natives from 1915-1934.

Most recently, the gangs have committed massacres against the poor in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, headed towards the Dominican border in Mibalè (Mirebalais), up in the pristine mountains of Kenscoff and in an oppressed corner of Petionville.

The more massacres they commit, the more their spokesperson Barbecue claims to want peace. Bragging about being “the Trump of Haiti,” Barbecue’s rhetoric clashes with the material reality of his fellow countrymen.

Haitian social leaders compare their dire reality today to that of their ancestors abducted onto French slave ships and imprisoned on sugarcane, coffee and cotton plantations. In the timeless classic, Black Jacobins, CLR James wrote: “If on no earthly spot was so much misery concentrated as on a slave ship, then on no portion of the globe did its surface in proportion to its dimensions yield so much wealth as the colony of San Domingo [Saint Domingue]. And yet it was this very prosperity which would lead to the revolution.” What would the Pan-African author and organizer say about this historic land today, as the tropical rain and unforgiving sun alternate punishing an estimated 1,300,000 Haitians who no longer have a roof over their head?

The Proxy Occupation

While Barbecue brags about his “revolution” to a non-Kreyòl speaking audience, 5.7 million Haitians, roughly half the country’s population, face acute hunger. 2 million are starving. Families who a year or two ago eked out a living in the vast complex of shantytowns that is the heart of Port-au-Prince, today are huddled together in squalid makeshift shelters in lots, alleyways or abandoned structures.

Barbecue and Viv Ansanm are both Haitian and foreign creations. Who would the bandi (criminals) be without access to massive shipments of sophisticated U.S. weaponry? What power would they have without his alliance with transnational cocaine traffickers? Barbecue’s power derives........

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