Part of GDC’s International May Day 2024 Campaign
In Haiti, May 1st is known as Agriculture & Labor Day and celebrates Haitian farmers, the Haitian natural environment, and Haitian cultural traditions. This celebration honors the Haitian labor struggle as a struggle for the liberation from the violence of colonialism & imperialism. The National Movement for Liberty and Equality of Haitians for Fraternity (MOLEGHAF), a grassroots anti-imperialist organization, pledges, “the USA and their partners will not continue to turn Haiti into a desert.”
The endurance of anti-imperialist struggle in Haiti traces back to the Haitian Revolution. By 1804, the Haitian people claimed victory against their French enslavers, overthrew the French military, and established the independent nation of Haiti. This legacy of anticolonial and abolitionist resistance has been carried on by the Haitian people throughout US invasions, installations of puppet regimes, and destabilization missions.
Working and living conditions continue to deteriorate as a result of collusion between the foreign capitalist invader class, the national bourgeoisie, and the neocolonialist state supported by imperialist US and Canadian forces. The latest round of interventionism comes in the form of the Multinational Security Support Mission, a UN initiative to deploy foreign security forces to Haiti, but Haitian popular resistance remains steadfast. From peasant movements to reclaim agricultural lands, to sweatshop worker strikes, to organizing in the urban centers, the people say NO to imperialist capitalist collusion and YES to Haitian sovereignty. MOLEGHAF, at the forefront of popular resistance in Haiti, focuses its organizing in the Port-au-Prince neighborhoods where paramilitary death squads armed with weapons smuggled in from the US terrorize the people. MOLEGHAF alongside union and peasant organizations call on people of the world to stand for Haitian self-determination and to oppose interventionism: HANDS OFF HAITI!
The Haitian Revolution and the Haitian popular resistance is a model to the world in the fight for Black liberation and the struggle against empire. You can provide material support for MOLEGHAF’s work here.