This story's a month old now, but still bears posting:
March 6, 2024:On Tuesday, the US government effectively kidnapped Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, a right-wing figure whom it had hitherto staunchly supported, a Miami Herald report has revealed.
Against the will of the vast majority of Haiti’s impoverished people, Washington—backed by Canada and France, the other imperialist powers long involved in Haiti—placed Henry in power following the July 2021 assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse. The US-led “Core Group” of nations has continued to support Henry ever since, although he has no popular or legal-constitutional legitimacy and has refused to hold parliamentary or presidential elections despite the mandates of all elected officials having long expired.
Now, however, under conditions where the country is overrun by criminal gangs, most of which have close ties to rival factions of Haiti’s ruling elite, the Biden administration has apparently concluded Henry is a liability who should be flushed from office. To accomplish this, as the Herald article documents, US imperialism is resorting to its traditional thuggery and criminality.
This is all playing out as Washington and Ottawa scramble to put together a foreign paramilitary force to be deployed to Haiti with US and Canadian logistical support to bloodily restore bourgeois “law and order” on the Caribbean island-nation.
Both the US and Canada have a long history of neo-colonial occupation and military intervention in Haiti, including as recently as 2004 when they deployed troops to oust its elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But under conditions where they are waging war against Russia in Ukraine, supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and actively preparing for war with China, and where there is visceral opposition among the Haitian masses to an intervention led by either of North America’s twin imperialist powers, they are anxious to contract out the job.
Last week Henry traveled to Kenya, whose avidly pro-imperialist government has volunteered to lead a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti and staff it with more than a thousand Kenyan national police.
In Henry’s absence, the gangs launched a coordinated offensive, whose purpose it soon became clear was to derail the planned MSS deployment and oust the prime minister. Over the weekend, the gangs stormed two Port-au-Prince prisons, freeing several thousand prisoners, and attacked Haitian National Guard facilities. On Monday, they encircled the capital’s two airports forcing them to suspend operations.
On Tuesday, Henry attempted to return to Haiti via the Dominican Republic, only to find his plans thwarted by his Washington patrons. Even if the Miami Herald exclusive published on Wednesday does not put it in so many words, its account makes clear that the Haitian prime minister was effectively kidnapped so that US officials and those of allied governments could browbeat him into accepting new marching orders.
According to the Herald, Henry, who had spent the previous two days in the United States and had informed Washington and the UN of when and how he intended to return to Haiti, was suddenly informed by Dominican officials as his plane approached Santo Domingo that he would not be allowed to land.
This soon proved to be only an opening gambit. Once his small 13-seat jet changed course for the US territory of Puerto Rico, Henry received a second midair message, this one from the US State Department, asking “him to agree to a new transitional government—and resign.” When Henry’s plane landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, it was “immediately met by US Secret Service agents” and for hours the Haitian prime minister was refused permission to deplane.
During this time, Washington, working with various CARICOM (Caribbean Community) leaders, was sounding out Haitian opposition and business leaders on putting together some type of new interim government to provide a fig-leaf of “popular support” for another imperialist-backed military/security intervention in Haiti.
According to the Herald, “The US proposal would have Henry usher in a new government structure in which a new prime minister and presidential board will lead a transition to elections and prepare for the Kenya-led mission. He would agree to step down once the new structure has been established, and a new prime minister is appointed or the security mission has deployed—whichever comes first.”
On Tuesday evening, US officials, acting in classic imperial potentate fashion, were making clear that Henry’s days were over. The Herald cited an unnamed US National Security Council official as saying the administration was “not providing any assistance to help the prime minister return to Haiti.”
“Our support,” the official continued, “is focused on helping the [Haiti National Police] restore security, expediting the deployment of the MSS mission, and accelerating a peaceful transition of power via free and fair elections. Our dialogue with Prime Minister Henry has been focused on these efforts and the need for security and a peaceful political transition.”
On Wednesday afternoon, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller clumsily tried to cover up the abundant evidence that Washington is once again carrying out regime change in Haiti, shuffling in figurehead presidents and prime ministers as needed. Miller told a press conference, the Biden administration is “not calling on him [Henry] or pushing for him to resign.”
read more:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/07/yfmf-m07.html