“At least 70 people dead in gang attack in Haiti.” (NYT) My Egalitarian Take on This.
Good government achieved by egalitarian revolution is the answer; not bad (pro-U.S) government and not "no government"
“At least 70 people dead in gang attack in Haiti.”
If you read this NYT article (which is not behind a pay wall) you will be, as I was, horrified. I have no independent means of knowing the truth about what is going on; I can just read newspaper reports like this one.
Let’s assume, if only for the sake of discussion, that this NYT article is conveying the essential truth—that a large gang of extortionists is using extreme violence against innocent people and that the so-called forces of law and order (Haitian government police and soldiers and an international force of Kenyans backed by U.S. funding) is too small and too poorly armed (no helicopters that can carry police or soldiers to the gang-controlled areas) to stop the gang’s violence.
What does this tell us?
The first thing that comes to my egalitarian mind is that the innocent victims of this gang violence need to use whatever violence or the credible threat of violence is necessary to disarm the gang and forcibly prevent it from attacking people. Obviously this is easier said than done. The innocent victims of the gang violence deserve to have all the support from people elsewhere that they need to disarm the gang.
The gang is in effect an oppressive government of the haves treating the have-nots like dirt in a region of Haiti called the Artibonite, which lies between Port-au-Prince and the country’s main city in the north, Cap-Haïtien. There needs to be an egalitarian revolution in the Artibonite region; the have-nots need to take, and hold, the real power in the region.
The so-called forces of law and order
My suspicion is that the so-called forces of law and order are, despite their anti-gang words and gestures, firmly opposed to the have-nots taking and holding the real power anywhere in Haiti. The U.S. government is absolutely opposed to the have-nots in Haiti as I have written about here and also here. My suspicion, therefore, is that the gang leaders and the so-called forces of law and order are in a tacit, if not explicit, alliance against the have-nots. The very last thing the so-called forces of law and order want is for the have-nots to have the real power, and so if the choice is that or the gangs being in power then they choose the gangs.
If the U.S. government were truly on the side of the innocent Haitians in the Artibonite region, then the U.S. Marines (never shy about invading foreign nations to protect those whom U.S. rulers want to protect1 ) and 101st Airborne Division would be swarming in the region and overpowering the gang with whatever military weaponry would be required, and—by the way—they would have support of the have-nots of the Artibonite region.
But of course this will never happen.
What should happen?
In 1936 the Spanish fascist, General Franco, tried to overthrow the government of the Republic of Spain (controlled by liberal capitalists in an alliance with Stalin) and overthrow the peasants and workers who, with anarchist leaders, controlled about half of Spain. Volunteers from around the world went to Spain to help the anti-fascists and anarchists fight General Franco’s military. George Orwell was one of them, and wrote a wonderful book about his experience: Homage to Catalonia. The U.S. ruling class makes sure Americans read Orwell’s Animal Farm and are taught (falsely) that its message is that there can never be real equality, while also making sure that Americans never ever hear about Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. This alone shows that the U.S. ruling class does not truly want to help the have-nots anywhere, including in Artibonite region. Maybe volunteers will go to the Artibonite region to help them fight the gang. I hope so.
The anarchist idea of “no government” makes no sense
The horrible situation in the Artibonite region of Haiti illustrates that, in real life under the conditions that currently prevail in the world, it is not possible for there to be no government, meaning no organization with a monopoly of violence in the geographical region. There will be an organization with that monopoly of violence, and it will be, in effect, the government because it has and uses or credibly threatens to use the violence necessary to make people do what it commands them to do (i.e., obey its laws.) The question is not whether or not there should be a government. The question is whether that government will be an oppressive one that is of, by and for oppressive haves, or a good one that aims to shape society by the egalitarian values of no-rich-and-no-poor equality and mutual aid and truth and fairness and justice—i.e., the values of the vast majority of people in most places, whether they’ve ever heard the word ‘egalitarian’ or not. (I have written about this criticism of the anarchist “no government” idea here.)
Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to remove the rich and extortionist gangs from power.
Postscript: This came to my attention after I initially wrote this post:
Gilbert Bigio: Israel’s Man in Haiti and the Architect Behind the US Migrant Crisis, by Kit Klarenberg. Here’s an extract from it:
In December 2022, Canada imposed strict sanctions on Gilbert Bigio, frequently referred to as “Haiti’s only billionaire” and the deeply impoverished country’s “richest man.” He, along with two other super-wealthy Haitian citizens, was accused by Ottowa of using his outsized influence and power in the country “to protect and enable the illegal activities of the armed criminal gangs” that have been tearing Port-au-Prince apart for years. Since then, Bigio has remained at liberty and unpunished – meanwhile, Haiti has slid ever further into catastrophe.
Markedly, no other Western country – notably the sanctions-happy U.S. – followed Canada’s lead. While wave upon wave of UN-mandated peacekeepers from every corner of the world have been deployed to Haiti in recent years, they have been unable to quell – and often exacerbated – the violence that has left the country without a functioning state or civil society. Kenya, currently leading an international “anti-gang” initiative in Port-au-Prince, recently called for the effort to be transformed into a dedicated U.N. peacekeeping operation.
For his part, Latin American & Caribbean Studies Professor Danny Shaw has zero doubt that Bigio and others like him are fundamentally responsible for encouraging and facilitating Haiti’s collapse. He tells MintPress News, “Only a tiny, well-connected clique of white warlords completely isolated from the needs and reality of the 99.9% of the Haitian population has the necessary private airports, ports and border contacts to smuggle guns and other contraband objects into the country.”
That the arms have kept flowing all along, and no action has been taken to neutralize the international criminal networks operated by Bigio, undergirding that influx, tends to suggest the tycoon’s illicit activities are actively, if quietly permitted by powerful elements within Western governments. As we shall see, Israel may lie at the forefront of Bigio’s international protection racket. Comprehending how he furthers Israel’s interests in Haiti and the wider region may be crucial to understanding how Tel Aviv’s tendrils extend elsewhere overseas.
Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine, says it all:
One other possibility is that out of the have-nots come those who have had enough of the arrogance, corruption and brutality of the have-class and have taken up arms to defend themselves, and these militias are called "gangs" by the have-class. I don't claim to understand the class composition, but this seems like a variation of the theme that those who oppose imperialism with arms are "terrorists."