On July 7th Haitians filled the streets, burned and looted stores, and erected barricades to block roads. Despite the government’s efforts to use the Brazil vs Belgium World Cup match as a distraction from their 30 – 50 % increases in fuel prices, Haitians clearly were not fooled. Protests went on across the country for about two weeks, despite Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant’s recall of the price hikes. On the streets, the call was for the removal of both Lafontant and President Jovenel Moise. Lafontant resigned on July 14th, clearing out the Haitian cabinet as well.

The streets have settled, but the people made clear they are fed up with Haitian capitalists and outside imperialists milking the country and the masses to line their own pockets.

The increased prices for gas, oil and kerosene are part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in exchange for $96 million dollars in aid  – loans and grants from the Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank and European Union. The IMF wants Haiti to eliminate fuel subsidies, which they say “disproportionately benefit the well-off” and prevent spending on badly need social programs.

It’s true Petro-Caribe oil subsidies from Venezuela have been a piggy bank for Haitian officials and their preferred private contractors. But the IMF is one of the core imperialist institutions that creates the economic and social conditions that exist in Haiti and other dominated countries.

 

 

Under the guise of “development” the IMF, USAID, Inter-American Development Bank, and World Bank work in conjunction with imperialist governments (US, Canada, Europe, etc) and multinational corporations to dominate countries into the “global economy.” They destroy local economies and subsistence cultures with tactics like land grabs, privatization, and grain dumping. Military force and political manipulation are also used.

Haiti’s export-based economy is bound to cheap labor, with the minimum wage set at 350 Gourdes/day ($5.22 US). Often the minimum wage is not even paid. Foreign companies pay no taxes. Protective tariffs do not exist. In this climate, foreign investors profit from extreme exploitation, while no revenue is created for social programs like healthcare or education.

Before this recent uprising in response to fuel prices, workers’ wages were already mostly consumed by the cost of getting to and from work. They cannot afford to send their children to school, to pay rent, or feed their families. They live in debt after working 12 – 14 hour days. Out of their miserly wages, the government has been trying to steal a 13% tax for supposed, non-existent social services.  

 

 

The IMF proposes that the funds for these social services would be acquired through the loans promised in conjunction with the gas hike. But their true purpose is to perpetuate imperialist domination. Major debt has been used since the 80s for new “economic development” rooted in export-based economies heavily dependent on importing all the goods Haiti used to produce itself. In this arrangement it is firmly “encouraged” to break up organized labor, provide tax holidays, and gut all forms of regulation to attract foreign investors.

Meanwhile, subsidies, aid, and loans go straight to the bank accounts of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, who use the state to accumulate capital (Jovenel Moise, Michel Martelly, Rene Preval et al)… or these funds increase the profits of the local bourgeoisie (textile factory owners like Alain Villard, The Baker Family, the Apaid Family, et al) and imperialists (Clinton Bush Fund, Gildan, Hanes, Sae-A, et al).

Social services are never developed or offered because the IMF, the Haitian state, Haitian capitalists, nor imperialist interests give a damn about the Haitian masses. They only see them as cheap labor in the global production chain.

 

 

Batay Ouvriye (BO) is an independent working class movement throughout the country. They and many other Haitians understand that this is not an issue of getting the right candidates into office, nor merely providing aid… but that the whole societal and global arrangement is bankrupt and will not serve their interests.

Click here to read one of the BO leaflets they handed out as Haitians took the streets.

BO has been organizing workers, peasants and neighborhoods around the issues of wages, taxes with no social services, and basic rights. Their movement is growing and their perspective is understood as one that consistently represents the people’s interests – independent of NGOs, politicians, capitalists and imperialists.

We can learn from their experience and example. How do we channel spontaneous mobilizations, various class interests, levels of consciousness into organization?

We need to grow a movement. We need to push back against the consolidation of fascism with an awareness that it’s been enabled by folks on both sides of the aisle. Capitalism and Imperialism are the enemy, and neither capitalist party – fascists or their “kinder,” liberal counterparts – will ever address them. In resisting both of these camps, a popular democratic uprising will likely be a necessary part of this struggle.

Let’s build our independent strength and be ready to fight for the people’s interests here in the US, in Haiti, and around the world. It’s One Struggle.

STAND UP. FIGHT BACK. ORGANIZE.

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