Haiti is the American Revolution

By Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD for Black Commentator - 9 Jul, 2009

Our revolt rises up like the cry of the storm bird over the lapping waters of the stinking swamps.

- Jacques Roumain, “A New Black Sermon”

We spent most of yesterday telling stories. Someone says, Krik? You answer, Krak! And they say, I have many stories I could tell you, and then they go on and tell these stories to you, but mostly to themselves.

- Edwidge Danticat, “Children of the Sea,” Krik? Krak!

Not a word from President Barack Obama, the man of CHANGE, or the newly appointed UN Special Envoy, former President Bill Clinton, man from HOPE, condemning the UN’s shooting of, as Marguerite “Ezili Danto” Laurent reports, “peaceful, unarmed protesters in Haiti” June 18, 2009. The shooting took place at the funeral for Father Jean Juste outside the Port au Prince Cathedral.

Laurent, Human Rights Lawyer and President of Haitian Lawyer Leadership Network, writes that mourners were shot at as they exited the cathedral. People immediately took the body of Father Juste to protect it from being vandalized. Mourners also picked up the body of a fallen protester and “marched it to the National Palace” while UN soldiers continued to shoot into the crowd.

This isn’t the first attack on the people carried out by MINUSTAH, the United Nation’s Stabilization Mission in Haiti. The UN “peacekeeping” mission patrol the poor neighborhoods “in armored personnel vehicles, [with] their automatic weapons, rather than their hands, extended to the Haitian people,” write Mario Joseph and Brian Coconnon, Americas. IRC-online.org. According to the School of Americas Watch, The UN troops were particularly disturbed by the poor and the religious priests (like Father Juste) who actually served to protect the poor. In December, January, and February, 2007, repeated assaults on the crowd in the poor neighborhoods of Cite Soleil left dozens of women, children and elderly dead. A UN spokesperson claimed that the 22,000 bullets fired into the crowd were meant for “gang members.”

From this window, Haiti is the American Revolution. Haiti is the face of revolution in the Southern Hemisphere of the Americas. Haiti is the face of enslaved rebellion against capitalist tyrants.

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