‘Day of Action for Haiti’ picket line rocked international solidarity at Oakland’s Federal Building

by Malaika H Kambon

“If we don’t protect our dignity, our dignity will escape us.” – President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti

In the wake of the failure and collapse of the U.S. imposed dictatorship of Michel Martelly in Haiti, and as conservatives from the U.S. to the U.K. are being investigated for fraudulent electoral practices, the grassroots people of Haiti continue to escalate their fight for liberation, solidarity and dignity. Rocking the streets with “Nou pap obeyi!” (“We will not obey!”) illegitimate officials imposed by foreign colonizers, Haitians have fought on all levels to return governance of Haiti to its people.

“Haiti is the place where the very first resistance to the European domination happened,” said Sanyika Bryant of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. “We have a moral, political and humane obligation to stand up against this madness that the Clintons are doing in Haiti.

“The Haitian people are rising up in a really, really super inspiring rebellion right now against the Clintons … It is very important that international forces in the U.S. stand up and call them out, particularly during an election year when Hillary Clinton is running for president again.

“We cannot allow Hillary Clinton to be running around here trying to turn Haiti into a colony. We just cannot stand for it.”

On May 30, 2016, the chains of re-colonization and enslavement of foreign invaders were dealt another hammer blow.

“We cannot allow Hillary Clinton to be running around here trying to turn Haiti into a colony.”

Despite international pressure and threats to validate fraudulent presidential and parliamentary elections held in Haiti on Aug. 9 and Oct. 25, 2015, the official Verification Commission, fueled by the people’s will, found these elections to be fraudulent and recommended that the presidential elections of Oct. 25, 2015, be annulled.

This is one more giant step toward kicking foreign invaders out of Haiti and returning her sovereignty to her people.

“The Verification Commission looking into the fraudulent legislative and presidential elections published its findings on May 30, 2015,” said the Haiti Action Committee. “Only 1 percent of the 3,235 election records examined were found to be legitimate and acceptable; 99 percent were found to be illegitimate and fraudulent.

“These records were examined in the presence of political parties, local and international observers. The commission has recommended that the presidential elections be annulled.”

As the contents of the entire report filed by the Verification Commission become known, pro-democracy activists expect that more of the ongoing criminal conspiracy being perpetrated by the coterie of international soup that occupies Haiti will be revealed.

For that is what a set of fraudulent actions this large is: treason, a criminal conspiracy, designed by high ranking officials in Haiti and internationally to rob an Afrikan-Caribbean country of its sovereignty via a massive fix on its democratic processes.

Apparently, the puppet Martelly, who according to activists did nothing on the world stage without the sanction of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, tried to impose puppets of his choice onto the Haitian political landscape when he could not run for office again. He failed, and the phony election montage of the international cabal of the U.S., France, Canada, the OAS, the U.N., and the European Union that supports him is being dismantled – a piece at a time.

Rocking international solidarity and unity with Haiti, on May 27, 2016, a strong, vocal and vibrant “Day of Action for Haiti” picket line at Oakland’s Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building reminded the world that Afrikan lives indeed do matter and that one of the foremost reasons that this is so is because of the strength of the liberation struggles of the Haitian people against foreign domination and for dignity, sovereignty and freedom.

People came to the picket line from their jobs, their schools and their communities to stand strong and in solidarity with Haiti and to say, “Nou pap obeyi!”

The picket line – one of several in a series of actions initiated by the Haiti Action Committee – was in response to the needs of the Haitian people, as well as being a part of the week-long educational and inspiring “Black Love Beyond Borders: A Week of International Solidarity,” from May 21 to 28, 2016.

Organized by the Haiti Action Committee, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and the Black Lives Matter Bay Area Chapter, the May 27 picket line was held for two hours in front of the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building at 1301 Clay St. in Oakland to protest the U.S. government’s support for the fraudulent elections in Haiti and to educate the people who gathered about the Haitian liberation struggle and current events in Haiti.

For over a year, hundreds of organizations in Haiti have taken to the streets in massive numbers to accomplish the following important strategic objectives: 1) Stop the fraudulent presidential and legislative (s)elections process from being certified, and 2) Force tyrant Duvalierist president Michel Martelly, selected and installed as Haitian president by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010, out of office.

These objectives are being achieved, but the fight is not over.

Braving assassinations, Guy Phillipe led paramilitaries, tear gas, beatings, police torture – a “terror apparatus” – hundreds of thousands of Haitians demanded the annulment of fraudulent elections, fueled by “zombie votes” that gave positions of leadership in legislative, parliamentary, municipal and presidential races to hand-picked candidates of Martelly.

Daily the people of Haiti battle against the U.S.-U.N. occupation attempts to exclude them from their own sovereignty. This used to be called apartheid in South Afrika. It is called Jim Crow here.

It is a battle against white supremacy and imperialism. Every day community organizations of youth, women, men and other groups are coming together and standing against the criminal U.S. foreign policies directed against Haiti that were put in place since the founding of Haiti in 1804.

And each day more and more Afrikan people in the U.S. are in the streets. Every day community organizations of youth, women, men and other groups, as well as brothas and sistahs locked down in the hell holes of the global prison industrial complex, are coming together, analyzing and standing against the imperialism and white supremacist policies practiced in the U.S. and exported to Afrika, Asia, South America, the Philippines, the Caribbean and other lands.

Daily the people of Haiti battle against the U.S.-U.N. occupation attempts to exclude them from their own sovereignty. This used to be called apartheid in South Afrika. It is called Jim Crow here.

From its location in the Caribbean, Haiti has had our back. We have to have hers.

The late great Jamaican journalist John Maxwell summarized it best: “Two hundred years ago Haitians ‘fought above their weight and won,’ abolishing slavery, destroying France’s ambitions in the New World, doubling the size of the USA and above all, being the first nation anywhere to enshrine the rights of man, woman and child, the fundamental universal rights of human beings, in their Constitution.”

Haitian people have proven repeatedly that self-defense is a legitimate universal law. Civil disobedience is an accepted universal right when a people confronts an illegal regime. The right to an elected government is universally accepted as a way for people to protect its existence and, as such, they will not obey the laws instilled by foreign invasion, occupation and domination.

“The struggle continues,” said the Haiti Action Committee. “Solidarity with the spirited, relentless resistance of the people of Haiti has brought about a victorious outcome at this stage of Haiti’s battle to regain her full sovereignty, dignity and independence.”

Listening to several speakers and solidarity statements from different formations and countries, it is clear that struggling people globally will no longer accede to tyranny, illegitimate laws and foreign domination.

From the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival to the African Liberation Day Celebrations, from the teach-ins on the financial rip-off of Africa, Afro-Columbian struggles for land and livelihood to the “Day of Action for Haiti,” it was evident that the Oakland-Berkeley Bay Area and Haiti ROCKED with the kinds of events designed to build international solidarity, to continue to break the mental, informational and physical chains of oppression, and to intensify global Afrikan and other liberation struggles.

Nou pap obeyi! We will not obey! It is now a global battle cry.

All power to the people!

Solidarity speakers and organizations:

Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee

Devonte Jackson, Bay Area oganizer for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and Black Lives Matter, Bay Area Chapter

Akubundu Amazu-Lott from the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party

Sanyika Bryant from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

Dave Welsh from the San Francisco Labor Council

ANSWER organization

Katie from the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHIRP) independence movement

Alice Loaiza from Marcha Patriotica in Columbia

Frankie (who spoke holding her tiny infant) from Puerto Rico

Sponsoring organizations:

Haiti Action Committee

All African Peoples Revolutionary Party

Malcolm X Grassroots Organization

Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Bay Area

Black Lives Matter, Bay Area Chapter

Priority Africa Network

East Side Arts Alliance

Malaika H Kambon is a freelance, multi-award winning photojournalist and owner of People’s Eye Photography. She is also an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) state and national champion in Tae Kwon Do from 2007-2012. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.