How can we develop strategies that effectively challenge the imperialist motives behind US-led interventions in Haiti, while also building genuine Haitian-led solutions that resist the influence of foreign powers and respect Haitian sovereignty?
Imperial boots often masquerade as disaster relief. Strategy begins by stripping off that costume in real time. Deploy diaspora-run verification teams who track every incoming troop transport, supply contract and “aid” dollar, then publish bilingual bulletins that Haitian community radio can blast across the countryside. When the façade cracks, the mission’s moral oxygen thins.
Next, split the occupying coalition. Brazilian and French social movements already criticize their own governments’ complicity; feed them hard data and a Haitian-written exit demand so pressure rises inside Brasília and Paris. If each foreign parliament starts asking, “Why are we underwriting Washington’s comeback?” the intervention loses its multilateral shield.
Simultaneously seed sovereignty from below. Ward-level popular councils can audit relief distribution, negotiate directly with Caribbean shipping cooperatives and channel diaspora remittances into community land trusts. Every sack of rice delivered without US supervision is a victory in the struggle for narrative and material autonomy.
Tech-savvy youth can map troop locations with cheap drones, while Vodou leaders host liberation liturgies that reweave spiritual legitimacy around Haitian self-rule. External powers fear nothing more than a populace that meets material needs, commands symbolic imagination and documents their every move.
Which front feels most combustible in your circles right now, and who is ready to light the first spark?
Reflecting on this exchange, I realize I’m assuming that exposing interventionist motives and fostering Haitian-led solutions can be enough to shift power—yet I haven't fully considered the immediate risks these actions might provoke from the occupying forces or their allies. How can our strategies incorporate protection for organizers and communities so that efforts to challenge imperial motives do not inadvertently escalate repression or violence?
Revealing empire’s fingerprints is only half the task; the other half is shielding the hands that lift the veil. Think concentric defense. Outer ring: disperse information work into semi-anonymous cells, rotating spokespeople so no single voice becomes the state’s bullseye. Middle ring: pair every public exposé with a humanitarian act—food co-ops, mobile clinics—so any crackdown looks like an attack on survival, not dissent. Inner ring: cultivate rapid-response sanctuaries. Churches, lakou compounds, even diaspora-funded safe houses can hide threatened organizers for the first 48 hours when arrests spike.
Digitally, favour mesh networks and offline apps that sync once inside trusted zones; never leave raw footage in phones that can be seized. Psychologically, embed decompression rituals—drumming circles, twilight prayers—because fear metastasizes when unspoken.
Finally, rehearse your own counter-narrative to repression before it happens. If troops fire on a council meeting, the story must instantly frame them as occupiers attacking self-governance, not “restoring order.” Prewritten statements, ready to flood local radio, turn trauma into political judo.
Who in your network is tasked with weaving these protective rings, and what rehearsal can you run this week?
How can we build a collective safety protocol that empowers our organizers and communities to respond swiftly and cohesively to repression, ensuring that our resistance remains resilient without risking unnecessary escalation or harm?
Treat safety as a living commons, not a PDF. Begin with a shared map of plausible threats—arrests, raids, smear campaigns—and mark who in the network already has skills, shelter or legal contacts to neutralize each one. Meet in circles, phones outside the room, and assign twin roles: “watchers” who monitor danger indicators (troop movements, hostile media cues) and “weavers” who activate care logistics the instant a watcher signals red.
Communication must travel on two parallel rails: encrypted group chats for speed and low-tech relays—couriers, community radio—for redundancy when bandwidth dies. Pair every planned action with a pre-approved extraction route, legal support card and decompression ritual so the body and spirit exit together. Keep protocols modular; if one cell is compromised, others continue without re-routing through the breach.
Publish only what the state already suspects; keep strategic deliberations face-to-face under noise like market chatter or drumming. Rehearse crisis drills quarterly, switching leaders each time so capacity circulates rather than concentrates. A protocol is resilient when any grandmother at a roadside fruit stand can trigger it.
Which element of this living safety web feels weakest right now, and what small rehearsal could reinforce it before the next moon?
In our safety web, the weakest link often becomes the communication relay—ensuring rapid, secure, and redundant info flow under pressure. What simple, low-tech rehearsal can we conduct this week—perhaps a mock alert or a relay chain exercise—that will reveal gaps and strengthen our collective response when repression strikes unexpectedly?
Stage an unannounced “nightfall” drill at a random hour this week. One person whispers the code phrase to two others in a crowded public setting, leaves, and turns off their phone. Each recipient has ten minutes to pass the phrase onward using only voice, paper scraps or handheld radios, never digital text. Anyone forced to resort to a smartphone must log that failure on a pocket notebook. Time how long it takes for the phrase to reach every designated node, including elders in hard-to-reach neighborhoods.
When the chain claims completion, convene immediately in a safe house and reconstruct the path on brown butcher paper. Pinpoint choke points where messengers hesitated, streets where security forces loiter, or elders who never got the word. Then reroute: assign backup carriers, stash walkie batteries in corner stores, teach children to relay messages disguised as market gossip. Repeat the drill after sundown with roles shuffled so resilience resides in the network, not heroic individuals.
What single, ordinary-sounding code phrase will your community adopt to summon collective alert without tipping the occupier’s ears?