The following is a statement from Ben Dupuy, Secretary General of the Haiti’s National Popular Party (PPN), to an international conference of socialists held in New York on the weekend of Dec. 6-7. The theme of the conference was “How can the struggle for worldwide socialism be revived?”

The question is not an academic one in this day and age when millions of people worldwide are looking for an alternative to Washington’s “new world order” of escalating wars and deepening poverty. The PPN, which seeks to offer the “people’s alternative” as a party in Haiti, analyzes the some of the features of rapidly intensifying campaign to overthrow the elected Haitian government.

Friends and Comrades,

On behalf of the Haitian people, I salute you and regret that I could not be with you today. This conference is of great importance. It is only through the establishment of worldwide socialism that we can hope to rescue our fragile planet from the grips of a small class of profiteers who are destroying our environment, subverting sovereign governments, waging merciless wars, and plunging billions of people into deeper misery and despair.

Never before has socialism been so achievable, and never before so necessary.

Two hundred years ago today, our Haitian ancestors were also ushering in a new society, preparing to declare Haiti’s independence on January 1, 1804. They had just defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s army at the Battle of Vertières on November 18, 1803.

Ours was not just the only successful slave revolution in history. Haiti was the first nation in the Western Hemisphere, and indeed the world, where all men and women were truly free and equal, regardless of race.

The European colonialist powers and the slave-owning United States immediately ostracized and embargoed our new nation, much as they have done to revolutionary Cuba in recent times. Over these past two centuries, they have constantly attacked our nation militarily and with lies.

This offensive continues to this day. Washington and Paris are engaged in an all-out campaign to vilify and overthrow the popularly elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The two wings of our ruling class – the big landowners and the import-export bourgeoisie – have put aside their usual feuding to assist imperialism in destabilizing Haiti. Their representatives among the politicians and intellectuals have vowed to boycott and undermine the celebration of Haiti’s bicentennial.

The essential elements of this campaign are an aid embargo, media disinformation and vilification campaign, diplomatic meddling, fomenting violence in Haiti’s shanty-towns, and a contra-style guerilla war. The campaign bears many similarities to the secret wars waged against Allende’s Chile, the Sandinista’s Nicaragua, Bishop’s Grenada, and today, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

Despite tremendous hardships, the Haitian people continue to resist. Over the past two years, the National Popular Party has held several giant marches to denounce imperialism’s offensive and to call on the Haitian government to more vigorously defend the Haitian people’s democratic gains. Over ten thousand people participated in PPN’s march in the capital this past September 30, the twelfth anniversary of the CIA-backed coup d’état against Aristide.

Imperialism and its lackeys are trying to engineer another coup and foreign military occupation of Haiti. This is the only way they can hope to take back control of the country.

But just like Napoleon in 1803, their plans are doomed. The Haitian people today refuse to return to the dictatorship we experienced under the 1991 to 1994 coup and during the Duvalier dictatorships, just as our ancestors refused to return into slavery.

In Creole, we have an expression. “Yo byen konte, yo mal kalkile.” Imperialism has counted well, but calculated badly. They have miscalculated the Haitian people’s resolve in defending our nation, our sovereignty, and our bicentennial.

Long live the struggle of the Haitian people! Long live the struggle for justice, peace and socialism!