Month: July 2021

You can watch this interview here.

According to Dan Cohen’s July 9th article for MintPressNews.com, Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in a coup planned by the Haitian elite, specifically Reginald Boulos.

Cohen writes that Boulos and Dimitri Vorbe are “two prominent members of the tiny Haitian bourgeoisie” who initially supported Moïse, but then turned against him. The term “bourgeoisie” comes from the philosophy of Karl Marx. However Marcus Garvey in his independent journalism also articulated a philosophy that explains this assassination.

Tony Martin wrote in his fourth chapter of the book “Race First” that “the most effective of Garvey’s propaganda devices were his newspapers” (p.91). He had several, including the Blackman from 1929 to 1931. One of his articles was published in the edited collection entitled “Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa” edited by John Henrik Clarke and Amy Jacques Garvey.

In the January 31, 1930 issue of the Blackman newspaper, printed in this edited collection, Garvey wrote that

“in countries where the blacks outnumber the whites, the “colored” build up a buffer society through the financial assistance and patronage of the minority whites. They convince the minority whites that the Blacks are dangerous and vicious, and that their only chance of successfully living among them is to elevate to positions of trust, superiority and overseeship [by] the “colored” element who will directly deal with the blacks and exploit them for the general benefit of the whites.”

In Garvey’s terms here, Boulos behaved as part of the “colored” element to assure their funder, in this case, the Clinton Foundation, that they can be trusted to “directly deal with the blacks and exploit them for the general benefit of the whites.” An independent journalist who writes outside of the two party mainstream from Haiti is Dady Chery who wrote that “Haiti is not exceptional in having men like Michel Martelly or Lamothe who would eagerly serve as the Vichy administration of an occupier” (p.287).

The occupier is Clinton, as Chery writes about in her book We Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation. Moïse was a protege of Martelly. Both initially eagerly served as Vichy administration for Clinton. However during Moïse’s presidency, he upset the member of Haitian bourgeoisie, or in Garvey’s terms, the “colored” class, and began the machinations that led to his assassination.

Why does the national bourgeoisie do what it does? Fanon explained this.

In The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, and translated from French to English by Richard Philcox, Frantz Fanon wrote about the national bourgeoisie: “at the core of the national bourgeoisie of the colonial countries a hedonistic mentality prevails–because on a psychological level it identifies with the Western bourgeoisie from which it has slurped every lesson” (p.101).

There have been two news articles speaking to the appeals made by the Haitian bourgeoisie to the Biden administration to help them appoint a new president of Haiti. Any role of the U.S. government would only continue the the unstable leadership that is prone to quick turnover. The appeals by the Haitian bourgeoisie to the Biden administration recalls my quote of Chery’s work in my book Pauline Hopkins and Advocacy Journalism that explained how the vote in Haiti for president is not a vote from the people but from “Haiti’s occupiers to the elections” (p.129)

The assassination of Jovenel Moïse was a consequence of his choice to, in Garvey’s words, appeal to the demand of the occupier.

The Haitian people must have a more complete and democratic role in the election of their president in order for Haitian leadership to be more stable.