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Haiti: The struggle of the masses continues

category central america / caribbean | the left | debate author Wednesday April 12, 2006 20:42author by Jan mackandalauthor email vantvan at aol dot com Report this post to the editors

The rendezvous is after the inauguration!

The battle of the popular masses still continues.
In the days after February 7th, the streets of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, were occupied by thousands of people demanding that their will be respected. It is not the first time that in the history of Haiti that the masses through such a show of force have forced the respect their choice in the electoral process. Once again, the plan of the dominant classes of Haiti and their imperialist boss was thwarted, but for how long?

Under Aristide, the Haitian dominant classes and imperialism reacted quickly and corrected the course. Aristide was returned as a puppet and served them until he was no longer needed. Now it’s Préval’s time, an ex-prime-minister and minister of defense under Aristide and himself also an ex-president.
Préval kept quiet throughout his campaign, he was not bombastic. In fact, most of his opponents complained of his silence. With the Espwa coalition (Hope), Préval was elected as the next president of Haiti.
The electoral process in societies dominated by capitalism and in capitalist societies is used to maintain the political unity of the ruling classes and to reorganize the relations amongst the different fractions that dominate these social formations. In Haiti’s case, elections have been used for the past 20 years to attempt to resolve the deep crisis that traverses all levels of that society (economic, political, and ideological). These past years, instead of getting out of this deep spiraling crisis, the tendency has been for Haiti’s crisis to deepen. There are no solutions in sight.
Neither the ruling classes nor imperialism has been able to bring any resolve. In fact no social classes yet are able to offer any solutions. The Haitian popular masses, especially the working class, are not yet able to offer their own alternatives. Due to the fact no social classes are able to offer any solutions at this time, the tendency for this crisis to decay is even far greater than before. There is no easy way out of this situation. Due to the incapacity of the dominant classes, imperialism has had to intervene. Haiti is under occupation and now Préval is asking for its prolongation.
There are two reactionary camps competing in the elections. One is directly representing the ruling classes, totally against any compromise even at the democratic level with the popular masses. In fact they are following their tradition of the past 100 years. There aim is to eliminate, pacify all popular struggles. Their concept of development is high intensity exploitation, while denying any social gains to the popular masses. The only way for them to achieve this goal is through organized repression under their leadership and of course with the blessing of imperialism. Their class dictatorship would dictate a specific form of bourgeois democracy not allowing any form of struggle for the conquest of bourgeois democratic rights by the popular masses.
The other reactionary camp is the Préval camp, similarly pro-imperialist but with a populist speech. Even though he got the majority of the vote from the Haitian masses, not being precautious, we firmly believe he is not going to act in the interest of the majority that put him there.
But the Espwa coalition carries with it complex contradictions. If used correctly, this can be beneficial in the struggles of the popular masses. But even with the help of imperialism, Espwa will not be able to address any of the core contradictions that affect the social formation of Haiti, whether structural or social.
The decaying of the feudal mode of production in Haiti, although it remains prominent in the countryside, leads to increasing mass impoverishment and to rural migration into ever growing slums. The deformed and dominated form of dependent capitalism, which has taken hold in Haiti, has failed miserably to provide any sustainable development or even a living wage. Capitalist production, mainly relegated to the assembly sector production of goods for export, is becoming relatively a secondary source of capital accumulation, ceding to so called aid, and other sources such as drugs, contraband, money laundering, money transfer from overseas and speculation as a preponderant source of capital accumulation. Such a situation sets the stage for a constant resurgence of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie in Haiti, which uses the State Apparatus as its main source of capital accumulation.
The former “big eaters” of the Aristide and Préval administrations and the potential new big eaters are lining up. No different from all his predecessors, as soon he was proclaimed president, Préval went on the begging tour asking for handouts. If the begging works, a flow of capital will give the Haitian economy a short-lived steroid shock effect. That flow of capital will come through the State Apparatus, creating the condition for the bureaucratic bourgeoisie to reorganize itself, through corruption and sweetheart deals. Structurally, by nature and instinct, this fraction of the bourgeoisie seeks hegemony in the power block. They have to control the State in order for them to achieve their objectives. This process happened under the Duvaliers, started over with Aristide and will add fuel to the ongoing crisis.
Some elements of the petit bourgeoisie have joined Préval’s Espwa to try create space for the struggle of the masses. They used the same failed logic under Aristide, but as we could see the workers and other classes that comprise the masses got nothing, only empty promises. The only space that was created was that the Big Eater’s pockets got larger as they opened very large bank accounts.
Préval has already shown his capacity in the past 10 years. In fact as prime minister and minister of defense he was defenseless in an organized coup by the dominant classes. He shone through his incapacity as a president. Now, as the newly proclaimed president, he is not making promises. He is already asking the people to remain calm. He is sitting down with our class enemy, the same people that tried everything to block him in the electoral process. Like Aristide, he is ready to collaborate and converge with the bourgeoisie and the feudal landlords that are exploiting and dominating the masses. Préval and the ruling classes have already shown their real worth when it comes to the interest of the people. Préval has said he is not coming to do anything, while the masses in their erroneous path chose to vote for him.
The Haitian masses thwarted the plan of imperialism and the dominant classes by forcing the CEP ,the electoral council ,to proclaim Préval as president. Now, it is up to the masses again to pressure the Préval government to respond to their needs.
The masses need to advance the struggle for their demands and push for reforms in their interests by using their democratic civil liberties. We must pressure the new administration to guarantee these rights. We must use this arena of struggle to expand the organized autonomous popular movement.
In their struggles to push for reforms, the organized popular mass movement must always be clear about the fundamental repressive nature of the reactionary state. We must maintain the autonomy of our movement from populist leaders by always putting forth our independent demands, our independent program, notwithstanding a particular leader’s popularity at any given time.
The autonomous program of the organized popular movement is the measuring stick that must be used to judge whether a particular program, measure or politician deserves our support at any particular time, all without losing track of our fundamental autonomy. Particularly, our focus must always be on building the organized autonomous popular movement at all levels.
Our program includes the following minimum demands:
• The feudalistic, repressive and archaic social relations that exist in production, whether in agriculture or in industry, need to be abolished and give way to more progressive ones.
• The government should promote the redistribution of capital generated locally to meet the needs of the popular masses.
• The government should control foreign investment and also guarantee that it is not detrimental to local production, especially in agriculture.
• The government should repeal all neo-liberal policies.
• The rural code needs to be radically abolished. There should be no difference between the cities and rural areas. As per the existing rural code, share-croppers should only have to give one third of their harvest to landlords, not the one half currently being practiced.
• The government should implement real agrarian reforms where the small peasant and landless peasants are the main beneficiaries.
• In the cities, the government should implement a housing program which adequately meets the needs of the popular masses. The government should provide for adequate transportation solutions.
• The minimum wage should be adjusted to 300 gourdes a day.
• Free and adequate health care, free and adequate education and the respect of the right to organize freely.
The struggle of the masses to maintain their civil liberties is crucial to the defense of their rights at the level of democratic struggles. Since the fall of Duvalier in 1986, the popular mass struggle has wrenched some important rights from the ruling class dictatorship. We must fight to expand these rights. Préval and his administration must be held accountable for the respect of the people’s democratic rights.
We know that Préval’s partisans will ask for a break, and claim that things cannot change so fast, but the masses have been bluffed many times. We have seen populist leaders engage in honeymoons and alliances with our class enemies and sell out all our demands. We cannot engage in honeymoons and alliances with our class enemies. We must push forward resolutely in our autonomous struggles for all our demands.
Long live the organized autonomous popular struggle, under working class leadership!

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