Troop withdrawal now and an end to the MINUSTAH !
CALL TO MOBILIZE
June 1 – October 15, 2014
The MINUSTAH is not a humanitarian mission. It is a military occupation of Haiti, installed June 1, 2004, by the Security Council, in the wake of the first coup consummated by the U.S. in this new millennium, against a constitutionally elected government in our America.
Under the pretext of stabilizing the country , the real goal of the MINUSTAH is to prevent the Haitian people from exercising their sovereignty and self-determination. It also serves to test new forms of imperialist intervention and social control such as those later applied in the coups in Honduras and Paraguay, for example, or in the slums and against protests in Brazil.
The results in Haiti? After 10 years of occupation, the country is in a state of serious political and institutional crisis, with a clear democratic regression, the systematic and violent repression of popular demonstrations, and persecution, imprisonment, and targeted killings of opposition leaders. The MINUSTAH also supports a gross manipulation of electoral and institutional processes, and the free entry of transnational capital to control strategic areas of the economy, including megamining, luxury tourism, the maquila, and agribusiness.
The U.S., France, and Canada head-up the MINUSTAH’s intelligence and strategic planning. The only novelty – and the most unacceptable – is that they left Brazil to command the troops who are drawn mostly from our own America: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, El Salvador, Honduras.
10 years of occupation, Enough !
It is now more than evident that the political-military occupation of Haiti is not, and cannot be, a way to generate either stability or an institutionality based on the rights and bien vivir of the Haitian people. Haiti’s Senate has twice requested the withdrawal of the troops. Recent surveys indicate that 89 % of the population rejects the MINUSTAH presence, and the wave of massive demonstrations that has been growing since October, 2013, demanding the president´s resignation, always raise high the demand to end the occupation.
Haitian popular organizations denounce the MINUSTAH’s action to suppress social protest. They denounce that the troops have raped women and youth, prostituted children in exchange for food, usurped schools and other resources needed by the people, contaminated the water and introduced the cholera epidemic that as of the end of April, had killed 8556 people and sickened another 702,000. The resources available to combat cholera are only enough to cover 8% of the 45,000 people that are projected to get sick this year.
The MINUSTAH also operates with aberrant impunity, ensured by the UN itself and the intervention and control over the much-touted electoral processes, led as usual by the U.S. government. The former OAS representative in Haiti has publicly denounced the atrocious manipulation of the last elections in order to ensure a president docile to Washington’s interests, responsible now for the rehabilitation of political and paramilitary forces close to the Duvalier clientel.
Nonethless, in late March the Security Council met in New York to start considering how to prolong the occupation. The MINUSTAH must end now! Those responsible should be held accountable to justice for the crimes committed and reparations made to the Haitian people.
We therefore call on the peoples of our America and popular movements and organizations around the world, to join us in building a strong campaign.
We call to mobilize for the immediate withdrawal of all the troops occupying Haiti and an end to the MINUSTAH. The Haitian people need our solidarity, not troops.
We call to mobilize to end the impunity of the troops, calling on the UN to acknowledge its responsibility for the crimes committed and ensure justice and reparation of the victims, their families and communities.
We call to mobilize in support of the Haitian people in their persistent struggle to exercise their sovereignty and self-determination: the first people in the world to end slavery and declare the universal rights of all men and women; the first people of our America to win their independence from colonial rule and offer support to other emancipation struggles in the region.
We call to mobilize a campaign of awareness and common action between June 1st and October 15 – the date when the Security Council will vote again to continue – or not – the MINUSTAH occupation. In each of our countries and before key arenas of regional integration, Haiti needs our voice to be heard:
HAITI – 10 YEARS OF OCCUPATION – ENOUGH !
Troop withdrawal now and an end to the MINUSTAH !
Latin America and the Caribbean, June 1, 2014
Initial signators regionally and nationally:
Jubilee South/Americas JS/A
School of the Americas Watch SOAW
Interamerican Platform on Human Rights, Democracy and Development PIDHDD
Articulation of Social Movements toward the ALBA
Trade Union Gathering “Our America” ESNA
Resumen Latinoamericano
Friends of the Earth – Latin Americ and the Caribbean ATALC
Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM – AYNA)
Latin American Political Economy Society SEPLA
Latin American Observatory of Geopolitics
Plataforma de Acción por un Desarrollo Alternativa PAPDA – Haití
Plataforma de Organizaciones de Derechos Humanos POHDH – Haití
Comité de Solidaridad por el Retiro de las Tropas Argentinas de Haití
Diálogo 2000-Jubileo Sur Argentina
Central de Trabajadores Argentina-CTA Capital
Unidad Popular, Argentina
Servicio Paz y Justicia SERPAJ – Argentina
Articulación de Movimientos Sociales hacia el ALBA – Capítulo Argentino
Movimiento por la Unidad Latinoamericana y el Cambio Social (MULCS) – Argentina
Encuentro Sindical Nuestra América ESNA – Argentina
PSTU – Argentina
ATTAC – Argentina
FISYP (Fundación de Investigaciones Sociales y Políticas) – Argentina
Rede Jubileu Sul Brasil
CSP Conlutas – Brasil
PACS Brasil
Comitê Pró-Haiti – Brasil
Tribunal Popular – Brasil
MTST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto – Brasil
MMC – Movimento pela Moradia – Brasil
Movimento Indígena Revolucionário – Brasil
Colectivo VientoSur – Chile
Centro Martin Luther King – Cuba
Bloque Popular BP – Honduras
Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular FNRP – Honduras
Otros Mundos AC/Amigos de la Tierra México
Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería REMA
Colectivo Revuelta Verde – México
Colectivo Voces Ecológicas COVEC – Panamá
Comité Pro Niñez Dominico-Haitiana – Puerto Rico
Coordinadora por el Retiro de las Tropas de Haití – Uruguay
Plataforma DESCAm – Uruguay
Articulación de Movimientos Sociales hacia el ALBA – Capítulo Uruguayo (en Formación)
Comisión Multisectorial de Uruguay
Individuals:
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate, Pdte. Peace and Justice Service-Latin America
Nora Cortiñas, Mother of May Square – Founder´s Line
Mirta Baravalle, Mother of May Square – Founder´s Line
Anahit Aharonian Kharputlian, Ingeniera Agrónoma/ Ex-presa política uruguaya (1973-1985)
Rita Segato, investigadora, Brasil
Ana Esther Ceceña, Observatorio Latinoamericano de Geopolítica / Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, UNAM México
Manuel Sutherland, Centro de Invest. y Formación Obrera (CIFO) /SEPLA Venezuela / Edit.: Asociación Latinoamericana de Economía Política Marxista (ALEM)
Alejandro Alvarez Béjar (UNAM) México
Marcelo Dias Carcanholo, SEPLA, Brasil
Mariano Féliz, Profesor Universidad Nacional de La Plata / Investigador CONICET – Argentina
(29 May 2014)
More information: http://haitinominustah.info
Organizational Endorsements: haiti.no.minustah@gmail.com