Haiti: gangs in control of the country receive arms from the United States
The United States is the main exporter of weapons to Haiti's criminal gangs, circulating illegally within the country. More details on the insecurity crisis with international analyst Danny Shaw. teleSUR
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00:00 To go deeper on Haiti's current situation, we welcome Danny Shaw,
00:03 professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the City University of New York.
00:06 Welcome, professor.
00:07 Good afternoon. Thank you for the invite.
00:09 It's always our pleasure.
00:11 Danny, you are currently in Haiti.
00:13 What is the situation the Caribbean nation is experiencing today?
00:16 What can you tell us from the ground?
00:17 Here in Haiti, the main themes are the themes of security
00:24 and the themes of what they call the gangsterization of the country,
00:28 the forces of liberation, the forces of anti-imperialism here across Haiti
00:35 are denouncing more than half a million U.S. guns that are in Haiti illegally.
00:40 It is these very guns that are fueling, I would call it a misnamed gang war.
00:47 These are not gangs as we understand gangs in the United States.
00:52 These are paramilitary outfits who are targeting
00:56 working class neighborhoods, oppressed neighborhoods so that they cannot mobilize.
01:01 So, the number one issue here are these paramilitary death squads led by individuals like
01:09 Iso and Kempes Sanon and others.
01:15 It's very clear where their guns come from.
01:18 Their guns are illegally smuggled from the Dominican Republic and from Florida.
01:24 As we know, one of the United States' largest exports is guns and violence.
01:32 And that's what's been crippling the capital city of Port-au-Prince,
01:36 a city of 2.5 million people,
01:38 hundreds of thousands of whom have been forced out of their homes by this paramilitary violence.
01:45 Professor, this leading information on Haiti's crisis is almost as if traditional media
01:53 do not want the world to know what is happening or simply do not care.
01:57 How can we explain this when we are seeing, as you were saying,
02:00 the situation of Haitian people that are living and there are hundreds of thousands who are
02:04 raced and afraid?
02:05 The West only mentions Haiti when they can demonize Haiti and talk about chaos and instability and
02:15 the kidnapping crisis.
02:17 The word we most often hear in the Western media machine now is "gangs."
02:22 But these are actually death squads, and death squads with direct links to the oligarchical
02:29 families that reside up in Petionville in the rich, rich area of Port-au-Prince,
02:35 which is perched upon a beautiful mountaintop overseeing the city of 2.5 million people.
02:42 And then, of course, the links to the United States, where the guns come from.
02:47 And it's the core group.
02:49 It's Canada, France, and the U.S. that have for a long time decided Haiti's political
02:56 and economic affairs.
02:58 There's a lot of controversy about the 1987 Haitian constitution, which very clearly
03:04 stipulates that no foreigner has the right to exploit the Haitian people, the Haitian
03:10 land, and the Haitian mines.
03:13 It appears that the U.S. is again doing everything to convoke a plebiscite so they can overthrow
03:20 the 1987 nationalist Haitian constitution, and then they can try to legally usurp the
03:27 gold mines, the iridium mines, and the rest of the minerals that have a home here in Haiti.
03:34 And of course, that's what we have to fight back against, this notion that Haiti is a
03:40 poor country.
03:42 It's not poor, it's impoverished or miserable.
03:44 It's long time oppressed, and that's a key difference.
03:48 And we have to continue to make that point in what is an informational war against the
03:54 Haitian people.
03:56 Citizens have come out to protest against the government's inaction in re-entering the
04:03 U.S. and its allies see this solution through a foreign intervention, something that Haitians
04:07 outright reject because of past experiences with military intervention.
04:11 What do Haitian people truly need right now to help them out of this humanitarian situation?
04:16 Yeah, that is correct.
04:20 There's deep distrust here of the United States and the U.S. government and military.
04:25 There's a generalized anti-imperialist consciousness across Haiti.
04:30 They do not want this invasion in blackface, as they call it.
04:35 They see the potential intervention forces from Kenya of 1,000 to 2,000 police officers
04:45 as a criminal intervention doing the bidding of the United States.
04:50 They distrust any potential fourth invasion and occupation of Haiti.
04:57 They're pushing back against this potential invasion.
05:02 They're saying that we are adults.
05:04 That's one of the slogans across Haiti.
05:06 We are adults and we can manage our own affairs.
05:09 All that Haitians have been asking for, really, for 220 years now, if not for five centuries,
05:18 is to be left alone so they can vote upon and decide their own affairs.
05:23 If it wasn't for the guns and the coordination of these paramilitary units, Haiti could definitely
05:29 enjoy its own wealth and decide its own political affairs.
05:35 The Kenyan invasion or the Kenyans deputized by the core group, by the U.N. and the OAS
05:41 and the U.S. government, the usual suspects, would be the fourth invasion of Haiti in 100
05:47 years.
05:48 And this is something that the Haitians reject categorically.
05:51 Thank you, Donnie, for your time here and from the South, as always.
05:57 Thank you.
06:03 We were analyzing Haiti's ongoing insecurity crisis and the lack of media coverage of this
06:09 issue with Professor Dennis Shull.