A review of the roots of rebellion in Haiti

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A must for anti-apartheid By KWAME M.A.

In recent weeks, thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets demanding an end to the military government of Lieut. Gen. Henri Namphy. In late March, troops opened fire upon a series of demonstrations, but the killings have only strengthened the popular struggle for democracy.

The Haitian people have been fighting oppression for over 500 years. They have overthrown dictators, slaveholders, and foreign troops alike. It is important to study Haiti's history in order to understand why the people fight on so valiantly today. With that purpose in mind, I would recommend the books listed below, which are available in many public and university libraries.

• "The Black Jacobins," by C.L.R. James, Vintage Publishers, Random House, New York.

This book analyzes, from a Marxist perspective, the complex class, racial, and national rivalries that existed in 17th and 18th century St. Domingue (renamed Haiti after independence), Europe, and the Caribbean.

Alexandra, a Black township adjoining Johannesburg, South Africa, was in the headlines last February while police and army troops battled its residents.

Once again, Alexandra is in the news.

Last month, workers and students in the township went on strike against the continued police occupation of their com -munity. A consumer boycott was enforced against white businesses in the area.

The last remaining officials of the township council fled Alexandra, leaving the administration in the hands of the people's committees.

Moses Mayekiso is the chairman of the Alexandra Action Committee and is the Transvaal secretary of the Metal and Allied Workers Union (MAWU). The following interview with Mayekiso first appeared in the April 5, 1986, issue of Socialist Worker, a newspaper published in Great Britain. We have abridged the interview for reasons of space.

Question: Please tell us the back -ground to the February 1986 uprising in Alexandra.

Answer: Apartheid, which is the whip of the capitalist state, faces people with problems both inside and outside of the factories. There was no serious body that was organized in Alex, so the people decided to organize themselves.

We decided to form street committees to organize people from the ground up, from the grass roots.

Then one of the comrades was killed by the police, and people put me in charge of preparations for the funeral. By organizing through the street committees, the attend -Maha! * hardere A DOCIALIOT ACTION PAMPHLET To order Army St., 94110 By Michael Seligman, 75 postage).

Army St., Rm 308, Rance at the all-night vigil was very big. At the vigil, the police antagonized people by throwing tear gas at the mourners. When the mourners tried to ask what was happening, some were shot dead. And then the fighting started.

That lasted for over five days. People managed to chase away the police and then, when the police saw that they couldn't handle the situation, they asked for rein -forcements. They sent the troops in by helicopters, and about 44 people were killed and more than 70 injured.

The people are no longer taking their problems to the SAP [South African Police]. They are taking their problems to the Alexandra Action Committee.

We created the action committee because of the divisions that existed. When there was a big action, say if the decision was taken by the unions, some organizations would say, "No, that's just something for the workers." If it was AZAPO [Azanian People's Organization], then people would say, "No, it's just Black Consciousness, we don't have to support them."

We wanted to bridge that gap, so there was an umbrella organization that directs the struggle properly and puts all those organizations together. You find that in the executive of the action committee there are people belonging to the youth, the unions, and unorganized people. It's a mixture.

Question: What sort of relationship is there between the unions and the United Democratic Front (UDF)?

Answer: In COSATU [the Con -federation of South African Trade Unions, formed in November 1985] we passed a resolution that we should be independent of activists!

This 'timely pamphlet discusses the on-going struggle in South Africa from a revolutionary Marxist perspective. The program of the South African Communist Party and other political organizations, the role of rural workers, and the recent development of COSATU, the new union federation, are analyzed in detail.

Schreiber and Carole cents 1.10 includes write Socialist Action, 3435 Rm 308, San C.L.R. James, an Afro-Caribbean historian, highlights the career of Toussaint L'Overture, a former slave whose military, political, and economic genius was manifested in his leadership of the slave insurrection that culminated in Haitian independence.

• "Written in Blood," by Robert Debs Heinl, Jr. and Nancy Gordon Heinl, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1978.

This is an account of the violent events that transpired throughout Haitian history from 1492 to 1971. Included is a chronology, glossary, maps, and many excellent photographs—plus a special section on Voodoo. The authors correctly state: "To read the history of Haiti while ignoring Voodoo would be comparable to studying the Middle East with no prior knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam."

• "The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934,"

Brunswick, 1971.

With the advent of World War I, the United States feared that Germany might try to establish a military Many political organization, but that we should work together with other political forces, all those that are progressive and fighting the system.

The UDF is supported widely by many people. Say in the unions we decided we are going to have a stay-away over this and that, then we communicate with UDF structures and other progressive bodies and discuss the matter—like the May Day now approaching.

We have been negotiating with the employers to get a holiday on May Day.

But that was rejected, so we resolved that we will just have to take that day.

Question: The level of industrial struggle doesn't seem to have matched that in the townships.

Answer: I think that the figure of industrial disputes depends on the reporting.

In the metal industry we had more strikes last year than any other year.

This year there is going to be a big battle, because straight from the beginning we were involved in a lot of strikes. Just this year there have been about 10 strikes.

And when I left South Africa, there were six metal factories on strike.

Also, the workers are using a new tactic now to occupy the factory, the sit-in, demanding that no one should take over our job—these are our machines and no one else will use them.

By SHIRLEY PASHOLK CLEVELAND—Despite cold, rainy weather, 350 to 400 people participated in a march and rally against apartheid April S sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Anti-Apartheid Committee. The lead banners urged "End All U.S. Ties to Apartheid" and "End Apartheid in South Africa: Boycott Shell."

Approximately half the demonstrators marched in trade-union contingents orga -nized by AFSCME, SEIU, UAW, and UFCW. UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown, Ohio, chartered a bus.

Youth United to Oppose Apartheid, a Cleveland high-school group, brought 50 students to the march. Other contingents included the Unemployed Crisis Center of Lorain County and the Peace Council of Youngstown.

Bill Lucy, AFSCME International secretary-treasurer and president of the hegemony, led to the 19-year occupation of Haiti by U.S. Marines in which thousands of people were brutally exterminated.

Dr. Schmidt chronicles the development of "Negritude," an international movement that sought an identity in Black and African origins. The movement found a response especially among young mulatto intellectuals in Haiti who were shocked by the racism of the U.S. occupation forces.

• "The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti, 1776-1891," by Rayford W. Logan, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1941.

The U.S. government, which was dominated by Southern slaveholders, refused to recognize the Haitian government until 1862, when Lincoln grudgingly extended recognition without full diplomatic status. Author Rayford Logan was a prominent Black historian.

• "From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti," David Nicholls, Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Before independence, the slave population was vir -tually all Black, whereas the slave owners were predominantly white and light-skinned. Nicholls shows how racial and color differences have continued up to the present day to play a major role in determining class and social status in Haiti.

Moses Mayekiso Question: What about a workers' party formed directly out of the trade unions?

Answer: There has been a big discussion for three years now, where some people have said, "Let's have a workers' party." But they felt that because of what's happening now in the country, with a mass movement pushing for change, if now we put forward the workers' party it might be divisive.

Therefore, what we can do at the present moment is to form a program for the organized working class, which will be socialist.

Question: Would the program demand that workers get control of the factories?

Answer: That would be my feeling, because if you just say "nationalization of industry" it does not answer how. There are industries that are nationalized in South Africa already—like the railways and Eastco-but the profits are not benefiting the nation. The people that are benefiting are a few bosses and the apartheid state.

Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, urged support for the Shell Oil boycott, pointing to the big role multinational corporations play in propping up the South African government.

Stating that "organized labor is in solidarity with the trade unionists in South Africa in their struggle for social and economic justice," William Stodghill, SEIU International vice president, explained the effect apartheid has on U.S. workers.

Shuping Coapoge, member of the African National Congress observer mis -sion to the United Nations, described the current situation in South Africa. Other speakers included Kathleen Geathers, Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice, Cleveland affiliate of the Women's Inter -national League for Peace and Freedom; Joanna Cagan, Youth United to Oppose Apartheid; and Kathy Barbour, Amnesty International.

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1586 MOBILIZATION PEACE, JOBSE JUSTICE ...25,000 hit U.S. war drive 8 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1986 (continued from page 1: “U.S. terror strikes Libya, escalates war on Nicaragua”)

Not Nicaragua," and "Money for AIDS, Not War."

On the heels of the anti-apartheid contingent, which contained hundreds of young people from Bay Area campuses, the labor complement marched, carrying union banners and signs from the six local central labor councils that endorsed the demon -stration. Many demonstrators and onlookers gave a special cheer to the striking cannery workers from Watsonville, Calif., and to the members of United Food and Com -mercial Workers Local P-9, whose strike against the Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in Austin, Minn., has inspired national support among working people.

Later in the day, demonstrators would learn that 6000 miles away in Europe, tens of thousands were protesting Reagan's air raid on Libya.

That evening the local TV and press gave extensive coverage to the protests in Europe but downplayed the largest protest of all-the one in San Francisco. Local TV stations said there were only 6000 in the march, and there was no coverage at all on national news.

Police along the march route reported to the organizers that the march was over 30,000. That evening, however, the official police estimate was drastically lowered to 6000. With the exception of the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported a turnout of 20,000, it was clear that the police and media were consciously down -This new pamphlet, by Carl Finamore, discusses the road to building a massive movement to stop the warmakers.

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Socialist Action, #308, 3435 Army St. San Francisco, Ca., 94110. playing the size of the crowd. They wanted to hide the fact that a significant demon -stration against the government's foreign policy-including the U.S. bombing of Libya-had taken place.

"We must be truth-tellers"

At the conclusion of the spirited two-anda-half-mile march, demonstrators put down their signs and made themselves comfort -able at the rally site to listen to speakers from various components of the coalition.

Most of the speakers addressed the events of the previous week: the U.S. attack on Libya, the contra vote in Congress, and the resumption of underground nuclear weapons tests by the United States.

Abdeen Jabara, vice chairman of the Arab Anti-Discrimination League, was one of the first to speak.

"I join here today the families of the American hostages held in Lebanon in condemning the Reagan administration's bombing attack on Libya," Jabara said. "The policy of the Reagan administration is to bolster and protect a foreign policy in the Middle East not unlike that which it bolsters and protects in Central America and Southern Africa."

Jabara continued, "We must not remain silent on the Middle East and on the struggle for human and civil rights for the Palestinians....It does not take a great deal of thought to recognize the risk to the United States and the American people from an unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict at whose base is the Palestine conflict."

Jane Gruenebaum, executive director of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, spoke on "the need to redefine our notion of national security."

"We must be truth-tellers," Gruenebaum told the crowd. "Our bombing of Libya was an aggressive act of war. It did not lessen the threat of terrorism." She continued, "Our support to the contras in Nicaragua does not advance freedom. It undermines the right of self-determination. And our refusal to join the Soviet Union in stopping underground nuclear testing says that this nation bears the ignominy of being the superpower that refuses to end the nuclear arms race."

Pat Norman, director of San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Health Services, directed her remarks at Reagan: "Our message is loud and clear. Stop the killing. Stop the bombing. Stop the contras and the death squads. End the outrageous terrorism that this country is involved in... We protest a man who feels as comfortable busting the unions and ending workers' rights as he is comfortable making sure that lesbians and gays are discriminated against in jobs and housing."

Al Lannon, president of International Longshore and Warehouse union Local 6 and a Mobilization coordinator, was the next to speak. "These are hard times for unions," Lannon said. "And that is why the Mobilization is endorsed and supported by every Bay Area labor council, by the ILWU, and by dozens of local unions."

Lannon continued, "Millions are coming more and more to understand that the government policy that busted PATCO is the same policy that is trying to bust the government of Nicaragua."

Carmen Olivares, a Nicaraguan supporter of the Sandinista government, gave a moving speech opposing U.S. policy toward her country. "We are the real free -dom fighters," she said, "because we have brought freedom to our country...The [U.S.] government gives money to what it calls freedom fighters, but they are nothing but assassins and killers—nothing but the old Somoza guarc."

"We are fighting and we will go down fighting," Olivares said referring to the Sandinista Army's defense of the revo -lution. "And they will have to kill each and everyone of us, because we won't give it up.

Right to self-determination

Gustavo Acosta, a representative of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) of El Salvador, explained the issues in Central America: "There is an ongoing and deep -ening U.S. aggression against our national sovereignty in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras.' "What we want," Acosta said, "is to determine our own destiny and to organize ourselves in our own way to resolve the poverty, hunger, illiteracy and di -sease-problems the Reagan administration has not and will not resolve with its TWA strikers head San Francisco intervention."

Marta Alicia Rivera of the National Association of Salvadoran Educators (ANDES), hailed the formation of the new union federation in El Salvador, the National Union of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS), and urged support for the U.S. anti-intervention movement: "In the name of 60,000 working people who have died in El Salvador, we are asking you to work hard to stop the U.S. economic and mili -tary intervention in our country."

Pedro Noguera, president of Associated Students [the student government] at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke about the role of students in the fight against U.S. support to apartheid in South Africa.

"Throughout the nation," Noguera said, "students are taking action for divestment, action against apartheid. They are becoming aware of the need to be part of a broad-based movement that is going to bring about change; that will make it no longer possible for our government to make war against Nicaragua or the people of Libya."

One of the featured speakers was John Henning, secretary-treasurer of the Cali -fornia Labor Federation, which represents 1.7 million AFL-CIO members in the state.

Henning started out by referring to the demonstration of 50,000 people organized on April 20, 1985, by essentially the same coalition. "One year ago we met here in protest over the domestic and foreign policy positions of the Reagan administration. There has been nothing within the past year to encourage optimism in either respect."

"On the domestic front," Henning said, "we still suffer from 32 million Americans living in poverty. Thousands of homeless live in the streets of America. In foreign affairs, we see the reflections of the mili -tarized foreign policy. We see it in the situation where we deplore terrorism in the Middle East and yet foster and sponsor it in Latin America...Just this week we have seen the reflection of that policy in the bombing of Libya."

Henning concluded: "We are honored to share your protests on this day... Work for peace, jobs and justice. We have the membership. All we need is the mobilization.

A tremendous show of support was given to Elaine Dwyer, representing the Independent Federation of Flight Attend -ants, which is on strike against concessions demanded by TWA.

"We've been out on strike now for 43 days," Dwyer said. "We have many good friends who have helped us both emotion -ally and financially. And we have some special friends," she said, pointing to a table near the stage. "And that's Local P-9."

Other speakers at the two-hour-long rally included Gus Newport, mayor of Berkeley; Alex Foreman of the Northern California Nuclear Freeze Campaign; Dolores Huerta, vice president of the United Farm Workers of America; Dennis Jennings, representing the American Indian Movement and the International Indian Treaty Council; James Merdoff Phillips of the African National Congress; John George of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors; Richard Trumka, president of the United Mine Socialist Action/May May Gong march on April 19.

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REVOLT IN AFRICA

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