HAITI, April 9—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is at the center of efforts to deal with the coronavirus in general, in the Southern region and one provincial town in particular. We are giving political and tactical leadership.
As of this week, there are 60 officially confirmed cases of coronavirus and two deaths. There is virtually no testing, and little equipment to deal with the eventual surge of the pandemic here. All of the underlying health issues that affect Black workers around the world exist here as well, and we can expect the infection rate and death toll to be catastrophic.
We began on March 1, by calling together the working class population of our town to talk about the coronavirus, what we knew about the disease and methods of protecting ourselves and our friends and families. We discussed some positive steps that we could take, such as having a roving sound-truck that reached out to the rural communities surrounding our town.
The Progressive Labor Party is a principal actor in an ad hoc coronavirus committee in the department. We are able to influence its members, politically and ideologically, so that we can understand why the virus will have such a devastating effect here. It has become increasingly clear to many that the answers given by the rulers both nationally and locally are unequal to the task at hand.
Who organizes society?
The capitalists and their lying politicians are trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, crying all the way to the bank, “Woe, woe, ‘we’ are a poor country, what can we do?” They rely on rumor and lies to say that “we are all in this together,” while they can shelter in mansions with generators and swimming pools, and freezers filled with food.
We point out the difference between the way the capitalist bosses organize society—stealing the value that workers produce so that profits come before people, racism and poverty come before health—and the way that a communist egalitarian society would function—based on the concept of the working class deciding how to share equitably the product of our labor so that all of our needs are met.
Some members of the ad hoc committee are by and large anti-capitalist, but believe that the ills of capitalism can be reformed. But we are willing to engage in ideological struggle while we fight against the rulers’ inability and unwillingness to provide the kind of health care that workers need. We are providing needed information to those who otherwise have no access to sound ideas about how to protect themselves during the pandemic.
Ad hoc committee advocates for workers
The ad hoc committee produced a number of documents and proposals that have been offered to the local administration but to no avail. A delegation confronted the principal mayor of the department, demanding that he do something to protect the population, even threatening to take him to court for his failures and charging him with criminal negligence. The threat forced him to relent a little and he has signed a call—which we had to write for him—for physical distancing and regular hand washing.
The committee is currently organizing a collective fundraising to put public hand-washing stations with clean water and soap. We have reached out to Haitians living abroad and other friends, pointing out that if the government refuses to do what is necessary, we will take care of our class collectively.
We are continuing solidarity outreach to the rural sections with the sound truck. In an effort to broaden out this work, a number of people have pre-recorded comments about the political and social situation to be broadcast, and friends are donating money for gasoline, etc. We are stopping for mini-conferences in each area to engage the workers there, giving them the opportunity to speak their minds about the lack of response of the bosses to the pandemic.
PLP is at the forefront of this struggle against capitalism in general and its murderous healthcare. Our analysis has many people nodding in agreement, with all or with part, and wanting to take part in this struggle on many levels.
We would like to take this opportunity to express our class solidarity with the workers of the world who are facing, and will face, untold suffering and death because of the inability of capitalism to provide decent healthcare for them.
We have an opportunity to sharpen the class struggle and build the Party. We are discussing with our friends what form our May Day activities should take this year. It is imperative that the Party has a presence.