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Mass Rebellion in Haiti

Photo credit: Haïti Liberté

By Joseph Rosen

Waves of popular uprisings have been roiling Haitian society for months. Workers, peasants, teachers and students have taken to the streets to oppose the corrupt U.S. backed oligarchy in control of their government. The last upsurge in protests began on Nov. 18, marking the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières which decided the hard-won war for Haitian independence in 1803. For several days, workers across the country mounted a general strike. The streets have surged with hundreds of thousands of people fed-up with a government that has not only ignored their needs but has met their protests with lethal violence.

The most recent mobilizations have centered around the embezzlement of as much as $3.8 billion dollars in public funds by government elites since 2008. There are obvious reasons that so many have rallied against the injustice of the stolen public funds. While Haiti’s bourgeoisie and their crony bureaucrats have been taking vacations to Miami, less than half of the Haitian population has access to potable water. The masses of Haitians are still struggling to rebuild basic infrastructure after the devastating earthquake of 2010. The funds could have been used to meet the dire needs of the Haitian people, one in four of whom lack access to sanitation.

In fact, the so-called PetroCaribe funds in question were intended for development, for the construction of much needed infrastructure and social programs as part of an accord with oil-rich Venezuela under the leadership of Hugo Chavez. This deal reflects a longstanding historical bond of solidarity with Venezuela. In 1816, the young republic of Haiti lent arms and aid to Simon Bolivar and his army in their fight for independence from Spain on the condition that slavery be abolished in the founding of Venezuela. In 2017, the PetroCaribe program was halted due to the imposition of financial sanctions on Venezuela by the Trump administration.

Acts of international solidarity fly in the face of U.S. rulers who have sought to undermine the popular will of the Haitians and the Venezuelans ever since this country was founded by wealthy slaveowners. For more than two hundred years, the U.S. has been relentless in its attempts to keep Haiti as a colony where low wage workers would produce goods for export, up through the bloody coups that removed the last popular government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Even today many Haitians work in sweatshops for an average of $3 a day to produce textiles and garments for U.S. companies.

The current U.S. backed government of President Jovenel Moïse as well as the government of his predecessor Michel Martelly are both implicated in the theft of billions. Some in the streets are still calling for an accounting of the lost funds. An increasing number are learning through struggle that this demand is akin to asking a thief to arrest himself. Fanmi Lavalas, the party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is calling to remove Moïse, his ministers, and to establish a transitional government. In their indifference to the suffering of Haitian masses, Moïse and his government have become more an enemy of the people by the day.

As repression grows more brutal, the masses are awakening to the need for a complete overhaul of the state. The Haitian National Police have killed a mounting number of protesters. More troublingly, there have been reports of killings carried out by paramilitary forces, recalling the death squads of the U.S. backed Duvalier regime. On November 13, mercenaries carried out a massacre of dozens in the La Saline neighborhood near Port au Prince; images of the brutal aftermath have fueled the outrage of the anti-government opposition. Among the National Police are 1,300 armed United Nations police officers forming an occupying army that answers to the U.N. Security Council, an instrument of U.S. imperialist rule. For the Haitians set on real revolution, they will have to contend with up to 10,000 U.N. troops should the Security Council authorize it.

The historic destiny of workers and oppressed people in the United States is intimately bound up with the destiny of the Haitian people. In the first case of U.S. aid to a foreign government, the slave-owning George Washington lent over $700,000 to the French planters of St. Domingue in order to put down a rebellion of African slaves. Neither Washington nor the French got their way. Instead, Haiti became the first oppressed nation in the colonized world to win its independence and the Haitian revolution became the standard to which oppressed Africans across the United States aspired in their never ceasing struggle for liberation. Indeed, the heroic example of the Haitian revolution has long shone brightly as a beacon to all oppressed people of the world. Let the freedom seeking people of Haiti lead the way! « Chavire chodyè a » “Overturn the pot!”

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French Masses Take to the Streets, Rebel Against Government of the Super Rich

By Nathalie Clarke

Paris, France—Since May, French workers from all industries and students of all ages have been rising up against continued austerity. Austerity means cuts to wages and social programs making people poorer. Emmanuel Macron, the bankers’ president, as he’s often called because of his work with super rich bankers and his pro-rich, anti-worker policies, has been doing everything to turn back any small victories workers have won through class struggle.

After privatizing the French railway company, which puts workers at risk of mass layoffs, reducing government investment in public hospitals, and attempting to reform schools to side-line working-class students, he’s recently decided to increase the price of diesel fuel.

In response, over 280,000 workers from various parts of France headed to Paris and other big cities, created makeshift barricades from trashcans and old chairs, and reminded the ruling class how powerful a mass movement of workers can really be. Beyond the big cities, thousands of actions happened all over the country, in small towns, on the sides of roads, at tolls, at roundabouts.

This movement, called the “yellow vests” for the high-visibility jackets they wear, began without a political party or union, amongst workers complaining on social media—now driven to the streets by their fury.

The “yellow vests” movement, so-called for the high-visibility jackets the protesters wear, started without the leadership of a political party or union; the movement began among workers whose protests on social media spilled into the streets.

The movement has not only galvanized thousands of workers, it has widespread support: 80% of French citizens declared they support the yellow vests.

The movement erupted in response to a few cents increase on the price of diesel fuel, but it has come to encompass all workers’ frustrations at the elite government’s disconnection with most of France. Most recent demands include a capped monthly salary of 15,000 Euros (around 10 times minimum wage in France), a tax on airplane and boat fuel (which would affect large corporations and not workers), and an end to French interventions in Syria. The class struggle has allowed people who felt divided because of their race, their political party, the industry they work in, their religion, or their sexual orientation to realize that they have far more in common with each other than with the ultra-rich capitalists.

The yellow-vests have fueled a widespread feeling amongst workers: anger at inequalities stemming from the government’s imposing anti-worker and poor rightwing policies. But because elite politicians like Macron and his cabinet are not amongst those who benefit from welfare, unemployment benefits, or housing aid, they see no problem in reducing spending that literally saves lives. Macron’s Trump-like government claims that the increase in the price of diesel is an ecological tax, acting as though they are not aware that taxes on diesel will disproportionately affect rural areas, where people drive to work every day and where most live below the poverty line. Any tax (that does not depend on income), whether the proposed diesel tax or the absurdly high sales tax in Louisiana, is unjust because people who make 7 dollars an hour pay the same as those who earn over 250 dollars an hour.

The big business media, if it speaks of the yellow-vests at all, will probably talk about the rioting that occurred in several big cities. It was not rioting; it was a justified rebellion. They, of course, make no mention of the billionaires who steal MILLIONS of Euros from France every year by cheating on their taxes. No one will mention that these workers are engaging in the greatest act of self-defense there is: fighting for their right to exist. Poverty is deadly: an estimated 10,000 to 14,000 people die per year because of unemployment in France and 6,000 people die because of homelessness.

A few cents may seem like nothing to elites who have never lived on minimum wage, but we workers know how much a few cents can mean when the paycheck won’t come for another week, rent is due tomorrow, electricity and gas bills were due yesterday, there is no food in the fridge, and the kids need coats for the cold weather. Whether in New Orleans, Louisiana or Orléans, France, workers generate all the wealth of society. Our children don’t deserve to go hungry. We deserve better than to struggle every month to make ends meet. We deserve more than the crumbs the capitalist offers us. We deserve better because it is from the sweat of our labor that the capitalists make their profits, because we are the unsung heroes—carpenters, electricians, culture-bearers, hospitality workers, nurses, teachers, builders, truckers, train drivers—upon whose labor society is built. The capitalists, whether in France or the United States, will not give us what we deserve, but, united as a class, we can take it.

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Women Hospitality Workers Declare: “We’re Fed Up and We’re Organizing for Ourselves & Our Families. Return $180 Million in Tourist Tax Dollars to the People!”

The Hospitality Workers Alliance (HWA) and Peoples’ Assembly have issued the following call to Action:

Honor Women Hospitality Workers Saturday March 16, International Working Women’s Day

Billions of dollars flow into New Orleans which has been designated a number one tourist spot. This is due to the hard work of restaurant, hotel, retail and other workers. It is our labor that brings in $180 million a year in tourist tax revenues that go directly to Private Commissions and Corporations, not the city budget. This is free money to boost profits.

$180 million in Tax Revenues belong to the people

When you add in tax exemptions for real estate developers, private universities, and other corporations, the working class of our city is being defrauded and our tax revenues stolen. Yet our wages are low, our jobs are insecure and we lack benefits. The conditions of hospitality workers affect all working-class communities and our families’ lives.

We protested at the Tourist Commission asking that money be used for health care clinic or insurance for hospitality workers. At the Convention Center we protested the further rip-off to build a hotel that will not pay taxes but will produce private profit and get public funds.

We take note that Mayor Cantrell has finally asked the Convention Center for a mere $7 million for infrastructure, and even this is being rebuffed. We Demand:

  1. The $180 million a year in stolen taxes go to:
  2. $50 million for sick, maternity leave, vacation pay and pension funds for hospitality workers
  3. $50 million for health coverage for all hospitality workers
  4. $40 million for fully funded, free, accessible child care centers
  5. $20 million be used for infrastructure like fixing streets
  6. $20 million to fully fund all early child hood education

We are inviting all organizations, social clubs, unions, and faith-based institutions to join us that day. We cannot depend on the politicians in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. We must mobilize a movement to demand our rights.

All workers, women and men, can get involved.

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Students of All Ages Rise Up In France

By Remy Herrera, Paris, France

In France, in these troubled times, extraordinary scenes have become an everyday occurrence. On December 5th, over 200 high schools across the entire country were completely blocked off, and there were many smaller high school walkouts and protests. The “yellow vests” struggle has inspired students to join in the struggle for their rights. Sometimes answering the high school students’ unions call, sometimes spontaneously, students across France are standing up against Macron’s neoliberal reforms. When we say neo-liberal, we mean benefitting the ultra-rich capitalists.

Currently, university in France is basically free—only 300 Euros a semester when the minimum wage is 1,200 Euros per month—and admission standards are designed to avoid marginalizing working-class, first-generation college students. Higher education in France is by no means perfect—first of all, just like in any capitalist country, it’s underfunded—but Macron’s policies will increase the cost of higher education and make it more difficult for working-class students, especially black and brown students.

In response to students’ frustrations, the government has simply elected to tear gas the lot of them. On December 5th, over 150 minors were arrested. But the students’ fury won’t get tear gassed away. The student unions at universities have also decided to join in the mobilizations. In Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest city in France, several middle school students (11 to 14 years-old) set up barricades outside their middle schools—and faced the police violence.

On Thursday, December 6th, hundreds of high school students in a peaceful, working-class neighborhood near Paris trickled out of the gates to head to lunch, chitchatting, joking, relieved that the school day was half over. As they stepped outside, it became painfully clear that this was no ordinary Thursday: across from their school, a group of police officers had blocked the road those students take to go home. These students, used to police brutality and harassment, did what they’d always done in such a situation and took another street, when about twenty police officers in riot gear—helmets, batons (sticks the French cops carry to hit protesters- NC), shields, tear gas in arm—raced towards them. The police officers stopped and lined up in front of the terrified kids. When three of the police officers started charging their tear gas cannons, one student shouted:

“Let’s get out of here!! They’re gonna fire!”

They fired. The high school students that weren’t too shocked to move ran off as fast as they could. The cops tear gassed, insulted, and beat up anyone too shell-shocked to get away. One student heard the cops who were brutalizing him yell: “You dirty bastard “; another girl, bleeding, covered in bruises, is told:  “You’re a little bitch! “

Running from the violent attacks, the students barely made it back to their school safe and sound. What had these kids done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They were leaving class, heading home, and the riot police brutalized them. With no reason!

Unacceptable. But unfortunately, things like this have been happening all over France these past few weeks. President Macron’s right-wing policies are carried out through blood and brutality. The day before, on December 5th, several students from high schools across the country were severely injured by flash balls. One, a sixteen-year old, was hit in the forehead; the other was hit in the cheek. Both students got support from their schools; the following day, the teachers’ assemblies (a part of the union that defends teachers’ hard-earned rights in France) released messages of solidarity with the students protesting and calling on students and educators across France to bloc high schools as a sign of protest to Macron’s policies.

One thing is clear: the old regime, the one that exploits its youth and offers most of us nothing but unemployment, low-wage jobs and poverty, is condemned.

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Only the Organized Working Class Can Stop Climate Change

By Casey Resto

In early October, the UN issued a special report updating specific aspects of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of 2014. The results suggest a centuries-long expansion in detrimental economic and environmental effects on humanity. Lower income individuals will be the most severely impacted as we’re the ones least able to afford what insurance companies deem “Acts of God.”

While international agreements require governments to pledge a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases, only an organization of the workers of the world will have the power to meet the severity of the crisis.

The United States’ decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and recently, to withdraw from the Paris Agreement show that a government will ignore eventual and irreversible consequences for humanity if it’s set up to maintain the rule of the rich over everyone else. We, the majority, will be the ones working in hotter and nastier weather.

Natural disasters have occurred at alarming rates: in 2018 alone, the U.S. was battered by Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael, floods displaced more than a million people in Kerala, India and Typhoon Mangkhut destroyed more than 10,000 homes in the Philippines and China, to name just a few examples.

These catastrophes destroy the environment and its inhabitants, but the effects of these losses are experienced unevenly depending on how a society is organized. Under capitalism, we workers and oppressed take the brunt of the hit. In capitalist society we see incarcerated workers in California fighting deadly wildfires for less than $2 a day. We see North Carolina’s state government refuse to evacuate prisoners in the midst of Hurricane Florence (a category 4 at the time). Over and over we see the cruelty of capitalism.

Low income communities are affected as city boards refuse to update their infrastructure to deal with the worsening effects of climate change. New Orleans residents are still feeling the costs of the August 2017 floods. The Sewerage and Water Board’s failure to do their job caused many damages to homes and cars.

These are not unique cases. As the environment worsens, so do our working conditions, our wages and our ability to afford stable living situations that can withstand the drastic changes to our climate. The destruction of the environment and its irreversible effects are an inevitable consequence of imperialism, materialism, and militarism. Capitalism’s persistent and eager need to consume, colonize and destroy in the name of money will only continue to devastate and ravage the world we live in, all for the pleasure of the bourgeoisie. 

We cannot take a passive approach to climate change. Laws take years to enact, and the 2014 IPCC assessment claims that even if global emissions were to stop within the next 24 hours, damages are already locked in for centuries. Those at the top won’t give up their greed. Our only option is to organize and make revolution.

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Racist Capitalist Owners of State and City Legislators Deny New Orleans Home Rule

WE NEED TO RESTORE POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

As a worker in capitalist New Orleans you have a right to pay taxes, labor for the bosses’ profit, and create a booming tourist economy by your work. You can vote for candidates who are bought by big business and who will continue to make things worse.

But when we want a higher minimum wage, equal pay for women, reproductive freedom, jobs not jail, sick pay, rent control and the right to decide what to do with $200 million in tourist taxes we are told, “Oh, no! You have no voice, no vote, no say!” These critical issues in our lives are taken over by the state legislature. Our city officials could stand up to them but they have failed to take up the battle. New Orleans, a tourist jewel with major economic clout, ought to be able to stand up for itself. When we voted to raise the minimum wage, Baton Rouge said no. Our city government shrugged and just said oh well. They could have called us out to an enormous rally to put our foot down.

Even some good-hearted liberals tell us oh well, we can’t do anything, it’s just the way it is. But that is a lie. Appeals to morals or children’s needs fall on deaf ears. Unjust laws are made to be broken. We need to mobilize our power. That’s history, that’s always been the way that change finally comes about.

RICH ARE ARROGANT AND FEEL THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO ROB US

WE NEED TO FREE OUR MINDS TO GET OUR RIGHTS

Racist segregation laws (Jim Crow) were not defeated by good, moral arguments. They were defeated by mass, sustained civil disobedience and action. Only then did the laws change. The laws were passed by right wing legislators and courts who expected Jim Crow laws to be eternal. It was only because they were afraid of our power that they eventually changed the laws. A Trump type government in France just had to back down on their attack on the workers in the face of massive, militant workers’ street actions.

While city officials brag about New Orleans’ post – Katrina recovery with its new high-tech industries and its influx of majority white professionals taking the best jobs, and its luxury condos, the working class of New Orleans is left behind. They want the food and the music and they want us to be their servants. As neighborhoods fall to the rich, as rents soar, as utilities, cable and food prices go up, our wages do not. New Orleans has the second largest income inequality between Black and white in the U.S.

WHAT’S GOOD FOR NEW ORLEANS WORKERS IS GOOD FOR ALL LOUISIANA WORKERS

If New Orleans workers win, all workers in Louisiana win. A rising tide lifts all boats. If we win higher pay and other issues, workers across the state would benefit and it would aid their struggle for the same things.

We can get there by recognizing that the class interests of the workers and the capitalist rulers are opposed. We can get there by joining the struggle to organize the sleeping giant – the working class and oppressed.

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Free the Children, Free All Immigrants, Workers of All Countries Unite!

by Ashlee Pintos

Last June people gathered by the thousands to take action against the internment camps set up by ICE that were holding children in cages and separating families. While Trump signed an executive order claiming to stop the separation of children and families, nothing has put a stop to the violence or terror. The situation of our migrant community clearly shows the importance of all workers demanding to Abolish ICE.

Countless cases have been shared detailing abuse of migrants of all ages at the hands of ICE agents. The most recent case to hit the news is the murder of a 7-year-old Guatemalan child, Jakelin Caal Maquin. As of December 8, 2018 Jakelin, would never again see a world outside of Federal custody. This child spent the last of her limited days under incarceration, denied water, and neglected as she got deathly ill. Jakelin and her father were two of over 160 migrants who were apprehended by ICE on December 6. They were taken to an area at the Border Patrol’s Bound Operating Base in a remote part of New Mexico. These areas where hundreds were detained only had a couple port-a-potties; no running water or access to bathing— and lacked necessities to sustain life.

Jakelin started to become increasingly ill as the migrants were forced on a 90-minute bus to Lordsburg. Only once the child was near death, was she flown to a hospital in El Paso. Following her passing, border patrol agents exploited her father’s grief by forcing him to sign documents in English while his native language is Q’eqchi (a Mayan Dialect).

In the name of Amerikkka, ICE is going about “business as usual” as Jakelin’s murder is one of many who have died in ICE prisons, at the hand of border patrol agents, or when agents dump water in the desert meant for migrant travelers. This child’s death is one among many. The capitalist class can cross borders to carry out business and make profit. Artificial borders and discriminatory immigration laws are enforced only upon our working-class sisters and brothers who only want a better life.

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Roots Rising: The Take ‘Em Down NOLA Zine

Debuting January 2019 is the first issue of “Roots Rising: The Take Em Down NOLA Zine.” This will be the first and only official account of the grassroots movement that catalyzed the world with the removal of four white supremacist monuments right here in New Orleans. Hear the stories from the organizers themselves, learn how the power of the people really made change happen and support the movement that made history in our city. A limited amount of copies may be purchased at the People’s Assembly Office at 1418 North Claiborne Ave. Email info@takeemdownnola.org for more info.

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Dirt

By Jewell Prim

This dirt is rancid with tears
It stinks
Flowers were never meant to bloom here.
These lives were forced to give too much here.
Give up the right to a beautiful home,
One that is perfect for casting roots,
One that would let them
Plant seeds
And watch those little children go,
Watch them grow,

Run!
In this DIRT,
This dirt is sticking
In a way that’s different,
But recognize that it is the same in many, many places.
This dirt leaves the cancer in you.
You’re tracking around medical bills you can’t afford,
And smelling the taste of the death
That is dwelling over you,
You,
And your neighbor’s heads.

Why
Didn’t they tell you this was BAD dirt?
Why didn’t they tell us?
That this foundation
Was built to harvest thorns,
And not daisies.
That the happy home
You were promised
Would cost you the life that you have every right to?

Why aren’t you listening?
Why aren’t they listening?
Cant you see it?
LOOK
Look
This dirt…

Maybe this death is in a language
You’ve never heard.
I guess this would never
Be the insidious dirt
You were given to make a house a home.
Your dirt would never be my dirt.
Ain’t that something?
huh

Is it weird to say that all dirt
Should be equal?
That everyone deserves to live,
In a place where the land they stay on WONT
Kill them?
That just as you are important,
I too,
We too,
THEY too are equally important?
Is that a foreign language
Too?

What does it mean
When your government kills you,
With deathly dirt?
Do they not care?
Who do they care about more?
Why, maybe they’re mistaken!
Once again,
They think,
That this dark and deadly dirt
Is supposed to be matched,
With our dark and beautiful skin?

My ancestors didn’t die,
In this VERY LAND,
By the hands of slave masters
For my people,
To die today,
By the hands of this poisoned dirt.

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$2 Billion Tax Exemption Given to Gas Company, While Our Communities Suffer

By Peyton Gill

The Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry just voted in favor of a $2 billion tax break for Driftwood LNG, LLC. In 2019, the company will begin building a liquefied natural gas export facility in southwest Louisiana. This is yet another company profiting from fossil fuels rather than sustainable energy. That’s a lot of money that could be going into the education budget for our children!

Tax breaks like these are often given to companies because they claim they will create jobs and hire local workers. But the companies getting these tax exemptions are giving Louisiana nothing back in return. The Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP) has provided billions of dollars to companies in public subsidies, and these companies have actually cut their net employment. According to a study by Together Louisiana, “Over 20 years, ITEP has provided $23 billion in public subsidies to 1400 companies, which companies, over the subsidy period, have cut their net employment by 26,000 jobs.” The Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP), is state run and is the largest program of state subsidies given to corporations in the United States.

It seems that the government’s main role is to give our tax money to the corporations; this shows who they really represent. Some school boards and towns are starting to push back on this. But lobbying will not work. We need a mass movement of workers to put an end to this thievery.