A group of popular Caribbean organizations released a statement against foreign intervention in Haiti and calling for an end to the militarization of the region by the U.S. and the West.
Declaration by Caribbean popular organizations
July 18, 2023
The looming threat of a US military invasion of Haiti, now supported by CARICOM, demands that the people of the Caribbean raise our voices against such a threat and against the unending US-led militarization of the region. This militarization undermines the 2014 Community of Latin American and Caribbean States’ (CELAC) declaration that our region should be a zone of peace.
The USA and its core group, who operate as colonial overlords of Haiti, wantonly violate Haiti’s independence and sovereignty, as they pursue their centuries’ long spiteful policy of punishing the Haitian people for using force of arms to end the enslavement of African people and pushing for the same outcome in other territories in the Caribbean and Americas. Today, the Haitian puppet leaders, installed by the core group, are unable to supress the Haitian people, and the US is planning to intervene militarily to achieve this goal. To its eternal shame, CARICOM has thrown its weight behind the US threat.
In addition to the threat to Haiti, from July 14th this year, the US military’s Southern Command kicked off its annual Tradewinds regional military exercise. This year it is being held in Guyana and is scheduled to run for 2 weeks, ending on July 28th. Operation Tradewinds involves 1500 troops from CARICOM member states, the old colonial powers, namely Britain, France and Holland and the new colonial powers, the US and Canada. In addition, Brazil, which led the previous UN military occupation of Haiti, is participating in the exercise. The Tradewinds military exercise was initiated in 1984, a year after the US invasion of Grenada. It is intended to ensure that the people of the Caribbean stay within the parameters set for them by the old and new colonial powers. It is a reminder to us that these powers will use military force against us, as they have repeatedly done in the past, if we dare to step outside the boundaries they have laid down for us.
The current military threat to Haiti and the ongoing Tradewinds military exercise demonstrates clearly that the colonial and enslaving powers do not respect the Caribbean as a zone of peace. Instead, they constantly increase military activities and threats in the region to achieve their goal of maintaining control over us and our countries.
The people of the Caribbean must raise their voices to defend Haiti against attack, to demand the end of the militarisation of the region and to push for the termination of the annual Tradewinds military exercise.
Caribbean Organisation for People’s Empowerment – St Lucia
Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP) - Guyana
Caribbean Pan Afrikan and Indigenous Movement – Trinidad & Tobago
Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration – Barbados
Pan African Coalition of Organizations - Barbados
Four years into his own ordeal as a political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal charged Philadelphia’s government with premeditated mass murder in the slaughter of MOVE men, women and children.
Dear Mr. Cole:
Despite the quickening decline of the “West,” the US and its junior partners in imperialism are determined to hold humanity hostage to terminal capitalist greed and violence.
The acrobats are back—riding bareback and backwards on Donkeys! They’re back juggling hocus-pocus focus groups; Back, spinning Wall Street straw into fools’ gold for the war-
The U.S. can never be reformed to render justice to its African residents. “Our struggle must have Africa at its core.”
