HAITI, July 2—Since January 2023, the two-year “Humanitarian Parole” program has offered Haitians, Venezuelans, Cubans and Salvadorans the possibility of entering the U.S. without going through the traditional “illegal” channels. This program, which in reality aims to reduce the number of migrants crossing the U.S. borders, has been praised by many Haitian workers and others who only dream of fleeing a country plagued by gang terror, economic misery, and political instability. Even children only talk about traveling. But the reality is that U.S. imperialism prefers to camouflage the problems that we are facing more than to really come to our rescue. In the capitalist world, solidarity is not an option: the big fish have no mercy for the little ones—the countries of the global north have no compassion for the countries of the global south. Their only aim is to squeeze profits off the cheap labor of migrants.

“I can't wait, I can't wait any longer for my approval to come,” admits a young graduate in legal sciences who is doing his second year of internship as a lawyer. He draws up a list of others like himself who have sponsors in the U.S. and have already applied to the program. He adds that many of these applicants, who have been waiting six months in limbo, are in danger of developing mental disorders from the stress, in particular depression. They are living on the edge, fearful of the insecurity created by the gangs and the rampant inflation that increasingly impoverishes them and their families. And there are others who can not find sponsors because the conditions set by Biden & Co. are very difficult for sponsoring friends and family members.

Those who do manage to leave come from all sections of society: workers (employed and unemployed), professionals, public and private executives, teachers and students. “Our country is pushing us out; we are not needed here,” said one person interviewed for this article. “It’s like we are in a pressure cooker, and the chief chef has opened the valve to let some steam out. This won’t solve the problems that the Haitian masses are facing because of the profit system.”

This is the march to Canaan, the Promised Land. Some people say it is a forced exodus even believing that the U.S. has hidden interests. Many know that what waits for them on the other side is not the gold in the streets but rather more racism, unemployment or low-wage jobs, underserved schools and hospitals, crowded and overpriced housing. So many deplore the program, but the contradiction is that it is hard to resist the urge to take advantage of it. They hope they will be able to fade into the population after the two-year “parole” ends.

U.S. Imperialists Can’t Find Other Countries to Intervene/Invade Haiti
For several months now, the “international community,” that is the imperialists and their local lackeys, have been dithering on finding a solution to the crisis in Haiti. None of the countries in the region is willing to give in to U.S. demands to field an invasionary force to restore some semblance of stability. The U.S. bosses’ decline in influence in the region is evident. Even Canada, a long-time imperialist player in Haiti, is hedging; the best they could come up with is setting up an office in the neighboring Dominican Republic to monitor the situation. The Dominican government rejected that idea, and both countries issued a toothless statement regarding their commitment to stability in Haiti.

The politicians in the Haitian bourgeoisie continue to act as if they are wearing blinders. Most working class people understand that these politicians are not their friends but are looking out for their own personal interests, looking for any opportunity for some sort of power grab. The local bourgeoisie crawls on hands and knees, in search of favor from the imperialist powers and multinational organizations.

The only solution is to stand up and fight back
You can feel the level of insecurity and fear in the masses. So when a Progressive Labor Party comrade says that she is not going to look for a sponsor to leave, that she is willing to “fight back against the capitalist system that has created this mess,” she is often met with skepticism. But using patience and all the tools of historical and dialectical materialism that she has learned in PLP cadre schools and study groups, she can say that the workers of Haiti have fought for their liberation in the past and will do so again. Capitalism and imperialism have built-in contradictions that make life a misery for one, very large class of human beings who produce all value in society. That we have not just a few Polish soldiers (who deserted Napoleon’s army during the Haitian Revolution and fought on the side of the enslaved workers), but will fight for the solidarity and unity of the entire international working class. We will build a new revolutionary communist movement that fights resolutely in the interests of our class.

This young comrade can make the difference in our ability to organize workers for communism and an egalitarian society! We have taken modest steps, engaging with our local populations in fighting against “food insecurity”—hunger through collective kitchens; organizing to provide masks and public sanitation kiosks against the Covid-19 pandemic; working together with our neighbors to rebuild homes and infrastructure after the 2021 earthquake in our area. These are all struggles that our Party initiated along with our friends to combat the local bosses who neglect the needs of workers and line their own pockets with ‘international aid.”

We can do better and we can do more. There are many more like her who would like to maintain their conviction and their composure in such troubling social, economic and political situations. In the current chaos, the ideological foresight of the members of the PLP is revolutionary. Raising class consciousness through struggle and political education is a necessity for the growth of our Party. This will be our goal this summer in our cadre school.

Long live our struggle, long live PLP. Onwards to the final victory!

The murder of Nahel M. on June 27th by a traffic cop in Nanterre, France set off a nationwide rebellion against racist police murders. Even after the cop who shot Nahel was arrested, people’s anger and cynicism about the system continued to explode. This multiracial rebellion, led by teenage Black and North African workers, spread to more than 200 cities and towns across France. They responded with violence as the police attacked the young rebels in the streets and arrested more than 3000 people over five nights of demonstrations. The rebellion in France is inspiring as it shows the potential power of the working class. At the same time, like so many uprisings before, without an organized communist party and a political vision of fighting for a workers led society it ends as quickly as it began and leaves many people cynical about fighting back.

Nahel was shot by the police at point blank range. Initially the police lied and said he had tried to run them down, but video exposed their lies and showed them murdering Nahel by shooting him through the driver side window as the car started to drive away.

At first French President Emmanuel Macron tried to ignore the rebellion. He was recorded attending  a concert on the second night. But the clashes between young people, angered at the ongoing racism of French capitalism and the police, spread beyond the working-class areas and thousands of people marched in the center of Paris. Macron, who visited police barracks to support his racist killers, looked to the police and the more fascist elements in the country to put down the rebellion.

The rebellion exposed, once again the extreme racism of capitalism. Nanterre is a working-class suburb that has a large number of people of North African descent as well as Black workers. Youth unemployment in Nanterre is at 23 percent (CNN, 7/1) and in France more than 20 percent of teenagers live below the poverty line. Many of them live in suburbs like Nanterre. Instead of the French bosses creating jobs for young people, the area is heavily policed. Across France the police have used identity check powers to harass and terrorize the working class. Young men perceived as Black or North African are 20 times as likely to be stopped by the police than the rest of the population (Guardian, 6/30).

As the demonstrations have died down the French ruling class has organized pro-government rallies across the country. These “restore order” rallies have been led by the most openly racist elements in France, including the fascist Marie Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) which is calling for more prisons and to have people that are arrested for any reason to be evicted from public housing. The working class can’t rely on the bosses to fix capitalism. Instead of making things better the bosses respond with more racism.

These rebellions have shown once again that the working class has the power to shut down and overthrow capitalism. It has also shown that this will only happen by the building of a revolutionary communist movement that can fight to take power through communist revolution.

A PLP member attended a Town Hall podcast which included Michael Brown’s father from Ferguson and Oscar Grant’s father from Oakland and others from Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland. These directly impacted families decried Al Sharpton and Ben Crump as ambulance chasers just trying to exploit the families to get more media attention. Nikki pointed out that leaders of groups including the NAACP were similarly a problem.

She said that she wanted to be in touch with local fighters, not just the paid staff of large organizations who limit their engagement due to political connections or their non-profit status.

While community support sometimes flags, Nikki and PLP members said that one solution is to rely on the impacted families and boots-on-the-ground community outreach. On the other hand, Angelo Pinto, an attorney from New York City at the podcast, pushed the failing idea that impacted family members should try to get elected to leadership positions in groups like the NAACP and run for elected political office.

The struggle for justice and communism continues
PLP members struggle with friends in the mass organization over our strategies for struggle and our vision of a better, communist, world. Nikki is also asking questions, joining meetings, and reading CHALLENGE.
As individuals and families directly impacted by all forms of injustice become more involved in our activities, we hope to bring them closer to the PLP so they become leaders in the revolutionary struggle for communism that will eliminate racist government-sponsored terrorism.

Prince George’s County, Maryland, July 5—Since 1977, Progressive Labor Party here has joined and led workers to fight against government-sponsored terrorism by police, prosecutors, judges, and jails. Today was no different!

Antiracists, PLP, and the family are demanding justice for William Green and conviction of killer kop Michael Owen. William deserves nothing short of a communist revolution, for all reforms are a dead-end plan for the working class.

Who was William?
On January 27, 2020, William had been in a car accident. He was searched, handcuffed behind his back, and put in the front seat of the police cruiser. None of the bosses’ typical racist excuses for killing applied—William was not resisting, he was not armed, and there was no warrant for him. Yet, kkkop Michael Owen entered the police cruiser and almost immediately fired seven shots, killing William, who was only 47 and a father.
Killer cop Owen was charged with second degree murder and other offenses related to the killing and has been in prison for three years, but he is still on the Prince George's County Police Force on administrative leave!

Slow-walking the murder case
The prosecutors and the cop’s attorneys seem to be determined to drag out the case against Cop Owen, hoping people will forget this racist murder or get tired of protesting. The family, however, as a result of the efforts of Nikki Owens (William’s cousin and family spokesperson), has doggedly stayed on the case. No advocate from the States Attorney’s office was assigned to the family as is usually the case, so Nikki kept checking the PG County Case Search to keep abreast of changes to the case. When she noticed changes in the trial dates, she demanded more information about the change from the prosecutors.

After multiple emails and notifying the press, her diligence forced the prosecutors to reach out to the family just two weeks before the start of his trial to schedule a meeting. At the meeting, one week before the trial, they told the family that they offered Owen a plea deal and he accepted.

That was unacceptable to Nikki! She made “NO PLEA DEAL" for this killer cop the theme of a hastily-called rally on the court day. A week of press conferences and interviews with Nikki, other local fighters, and non-profit groups all had the same demand to prosecute the killer cop fully. Ironically, the plea deal was so bad that the judge declined the deal and set a trial date of November 27, 2023.

State-sponsored terror
PLP describes police brutality as a key part of state-sponsored terrorism because police act as agents of the capitalist class and their state apparatus. Their role in capitalist society is to oppress and terrorize the working class, especially Black workers.

The rulers fear that Black workers, super exploited and oppressed by capitalism, will fight back militantly as they have in the past. Police are to protect capitalism, property over people and attack all working-class people who oppose them with strikes, rallies, protests, and rebellions.

Broadening the fight
PL’ers have joined Nikki’s family at hearings on procedural motions leading up to the trial. Recent efforts by the cop’s lawyer to move the trial to a more conservative location in Maryland failed, as family and supporters filled the courtroom.

Baltimore PLP comrades and friends active in the West Wednesdays (a struggle to seek justice for Tyrone West who was killed by  police in 2013) joined local supporters in the courtroom. One is a young leader who is quickly learning about the court system! Nikki’s family and other community members welcomed the West Wednesday brothers and sisters to this fight for justice.

On September 28, 2023 at 9 am, there will be another hearing. The cop’s lawyer is trying to  have evidence against Cop Owen ruled inadmissible. This type of lying lawyering led to Zimmerman's acquittal in the Trayvon Martin murder case. PLP will continue to mobilize more people to attend all hearings leading up to trial and the trial itself on November 27.

The antics of prosecutors and defense attorneys in cases that involve victims of police violence should themselves be considered criminal. Families are experiencing repeated trauma by court systems that allow trial delays for frivolous reasons, toy with the time of the court and families with unnecessary motions, and have families sit in court as defense attorneys criminalize victims in hopes of getting reduced sentences or charges dropped. And most families endure years of this government-sanctioned treatment as they fight for some resemblance of justice for their loved ones.   

Reformism a dead-end
Reform groups that PLP members participate in fought in the state legislature to establish county-based Police Accountability Boards (PAB). Predictably, no county in Maryland gave their Board investigatory or subpoena powers, so such toothless organizations will, like civilian review boards across the country, rubber stamp police reports.

These groups keep focusing on who to elect and then pressure them to push a police accountability agenda. They organize many trips to Annapolis, Maryland’s state capital, to testify on bills and meet with state legislators. Canvassing to bring out workers to vote is crucial to them. This is an example of how reform misleaders dull the fightback and steer workers away from revolution.

PL members involved in all of these efforts constantly point out how these strategies are dead-ends in the struggle and that militant, revolutionary struggle for communism is the only strategy that makes sense. Some fighters are tuning in!J