Published November 8, 2024
On Tuesday I reached out to my Haitian colleague, Mario Joseph, at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) to talk about the US election results. Sitting at his desk, Mario could hear gunfire from armed groups seeking to take over the Solino neighborhood a half-mile away to the north. Gangs are expanding towards the office from the south as well. Haiti’s last election for anything was under the Obama Administration.
So Mario, like many Haitians, has perspective on what we are going through in the US. His perspective includes deep sympathy for Haitians in the US and others who will suffer great harm over the next four years. The perspective also includes hard-won understanding of what happens when institutions designed to support the rule of law are dismantled.
Mario’s perspective did not include the shock or surprise that many of us in the US are feeling. However I might describe our current challenges—racism, sexism, fascism, foreign interference, misinformation, etc.—Haitians have been fighting it for centuries. This includes resisting policies unleashed by the 2017 inauguration of President Trump, but also resisting policies unleashed by the 1801 inauguration of President Thomas Jefferson, a slaveowner who understood that a prosperous independent Haiti would inspire struggles for freedom and equality everywhere, at the expense of US elites’ power. It also includes resisting the current US administration’s support for the PHTK party that dismantled Haiti’s democracy and nurtured the armed groups causing so much horror in Haiti.
Mario was clear on what we all need to do: a resolute “Nap reziste” – “We will resist.” Resistance means the kind of work that IJDH and BAI did under the first Trump Administration, including:
- winning a Federal Court injunction blocking the racially-motivated cancellation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 50,000 Haitians;
- fighting in the press, with OpEds, interviews and press releases;
- fighting on the streets, by organizing and joining protests; and
- documenting human rights violations in the US and Haiti, and engaging with international human rights mechanisms.
Resistance will mean deploying new strategies this time, because the institutions of US democracy are even more compromised. We will need to learn from Haitians and other who have been fighting in these challenging contexts—often successfully—for decades. Above all, we will need to respect the Haitian imperative that men anpil, chay pa lou (many hands makes the load light). At IJDH and BAI, that means working collaboratively, continuing to support Haitian and Haitian-American movements and organizations to enforce their own rights and providing the information and connections to bring new organizations into the struggle for democracy and justice.
IJDH and BAI will also continue to resist the centuries of racist policies by powerful countries that have kept Haiti unstable and impoverished. The centerpiece of this work will be our campaign for restitution of Haiti’s independence debt and the establishment of the sovereign, democratic government needed to assert Haiti’s strong legal claim. In Haiti, BAI will continue to serve as the legal backbone of Haiti’s pro-democracy movement and train the next generation of progressive lawyers.
I would like to invite everyone in the IJDH community—financial supporters, collaborators and allies—to join IJDH as nap reziste the harms planned for our neighbors and our democracy. Please join us in fighting, but also join us in finding strength, comfort, inspiration and strategy in the historic resistance of our Haitian partners.
In solidarity,
Brian Concannon
IJDH Executive Director