As our rights are under attack by an arrogant clique of billionaires at home, the global beacon of freedom, Haiti, confronts one of the toughest moments in its centuries-long liberation struggle.

For over four years now, burgeoning paramilitary gangs have waged a war on the 2.5 million people of Port-au-Prince. Last year, the disparate paramilitaries confederated into the Viv Ansanm gang under the leadership of former police officer turned warlord, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. In front of our eyes, the robust capital city of the world-famous carnival, of bustling commerce and proud traditions has been reduced to a city of refugees, shelters and isolated, hold-out communities resisting with everything they have. There are still neighborhoods like Kanape Vè and Akaye where the residents are organized into Brigad Vijilans (Neighborhood Self-Defense Brigades) to fight against the rule of death squads composed of child soldiers and other lumpen cannon fodder. David readies his slingshot against a Goliath, armed to the teeth with an avalanche of U.S. weapons which rendezvous with South American cocaine in this most permeable, punctured and penetrated country of the Caribbean.

The War of Predation

The first question outsiders ask is “Why?” Why are the Viv Ansanm paramilitaries waging war on the civilian population, displacing now more than an estimated 1,000,000 Haitians, or half the capital city?

It is important to highlight that August 22, 2018 represented the birth of the PetroCaribe movement to recover billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil embezzled by the corrupt colonial state. The sight of millions of Haitians conscious, united and mobilised forced the U.S.-sponsored aristocracy to pacify the millions of rebels. They partially built and set in motion a modern-day Frakenstein, their very own tonton makouts. The masses say the gangs are worse because “the criminal police and military wore uniforms and could be identified.”

The “gangs,” as the mainstream media refers to them, are the shock troops of the Haitian bourgeoisie and foreign capital. Researchers Mamyrah Dougé-Prosper, Ernst Jean-Pierre, Georges Eddy Lucien and Sabine Lamour outline the state and gang “predation sites.” Like early police forces in the U.S. and the Duvalier’s private security force, the Tonton Makouts, Viv Ansanm are mercenaries for hire.

“Customs is one site of predation, affording the capacity to import guns, rotted carcinogenic foods, and other expired products that kill. But the bourgeoisie monopolize all industries. The Gilbert Bigio Group, for example, controls construction (iron and wood imports).”

According to these experts and the Haitian masses, the gangs have a definitive agenda. They only hunt down, corral up and occupy poor communities. The highest summits of the elites in Petionville like Pelegren, Morne Calvaire and areas of Laboul have remained untouched by “the terrorists,” or tewowis as the communities say.

Furthermore, the scholars assert, the gangs “destroyed the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Disputes offices where government spending receipts are archived, including the dossiers concerning the PetroCaribe arrangement with Venezuela.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research reports on the medical catastrophe set in motion by four years of attacks from armed groups: “the situation is........

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