1301 Clay St
Oakland, CA 94612
USA
Pre-march protest in solidarity with the fighting people of Haiti:
Black Lives Matter from Haiti to the Bay
· Drummers
· Report from Haiti – By Pierre Labossiere
A part of the 96 Hours of Direct Action to Reclaim the Radical Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!” We will march to join the 11AM rally and march at Oscar Grant Plaza
Haiti is in the streets almost every day – as tens of thousands turn out to demand that the stolen 2015 election be thrown out. The mass movement is telling the U.S./U.N. occupiers: “Don’t Steal Our Votes!” It is demanding “Reclaim Haiti’s sovereignty!” from foreign occupation.
Haiti’s struggle is our struggle. It’s now 50 years since the U.S. Voting Rights Act, but it’s been rolled back to systematically deny Black people the right to vote – again. In Haiti the 2015 elections were plagued by endless and well-documented ballot stuffing, vote buying, armed coercion, naked vote rigging – yet the U.S. ambassador gave his “OK” to the faked election results. In effect, whether it’s here or in Haiti, the U.S. rulers are deliberately interfering with the people’s right to freely choose the representatives that they want.
Haiti’s fight is our fight. Just as we in the Bay Area are fighting against police murder of Black people, so it is in Haiti. The State Dept wants to suppress the surging popular movement – using police terror against the people. During the 2015 elections, special US-financed police units sprayed machine gun fire into working-class neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince and Arcahaie to suppress the vote, killing scores of people.
The U.S. State Department is the main actor trying to push through the fraudulent elections – maneuvering to exclude Haiti’s most popular political party – Fanmi Lavalas – from any role in the next government. The U.S. wants to keep in power corrupt puppets who are willing to give away Haiti’s abundant mineral resources … privatize the mines and the electric company … and keep factory wages at US$3/day – continuing a long tradition of the U.S. and France stealing the wealth and the labor of the Haitian people.
Lighting the fires of struggle – Many have commented that the Haitian people, in their vast majority, are very aware of their history – proud inheritors of the Revolution of 1791-1804, when Haiti defeated the army of Napoleon, ended plantation slavery and declared independence from France. “It’s on every lip,” said one Lavalas activist. “People are saying that in rejecting this stolen election, we are lighting the fires of struggle, continuing the fight for equality and sovereignty that our ancestors fought for 200 years ago.”
****After the protest we will walk 2 blocks to join the 11:00 AM rally and march at Oscar Grant Plaza (14th & Broadway) to Reclaim the Radical Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. ****
For more information, connect with the Haiti Action Committee: www.haitisolidarity.net @HaitiAction1 and on Facebook