Dear John,

Haitian President/dictator Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by mercenaries on Wednesday! We say dictator because his term expired back in February, but he stayed on thanks to U.S and OAS support. He was deeply unpopular, but the Haitian people wanted justice, not murder. 

The new de facto leader, Primer Minister Claude Joseph, has asked the U.S. to send troops! A day after the assassination, the Washington Post called for “swift and muscular” intervention. Plus, the U.S. Navy just docked a ship in Santo Domingo, on the Dominican Republic’s side of the island of Hispaniola. The asssassination of Moïse should not be used as a pretext for another occupation of Haiti.

Tell President Biden: No troops to Haiti! 

Days before his murder, Moïse had actually fired Prime Minister Joseph. In fact, Joseph was never confirmed by the Haitian Parliament, in part because Moïse had dissolved it in 2020. Furthermore, Joseph, even if he had legitimately been the prime minister, would not have been constitutionally in line to succeed the president. Despite this, the Biden administration and the U.S.-born United Nations Special Representative to Haiti immediately recognized Joseph as the new president. Joseph has received assistance from the U.S. since 2003, when he was a student sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy.

Details of the assassination are still coming in, but at least 26 assailants are mercenaries who retired from the Colombian military. The U.S. has been funding, training and supplying Colombia’s army with weapons for decades. According to Colombian media, the presumptive mercenary leader was one of those who received special commando training from U.S. forces. The mercenaries were hired by 4 Colombian security firms. Given that Colombia is a close U.S. ally, the U.S. may well have had knowledge of the plans to kill Moïse. 

That’s right: a U.S.-funded politician declared himself president and was recognized by the U.S. after the previous president was killed in an operation the U.S. may well have known about. Now he’s calling for U.S. troops to occupy Haiti! The Biden administration said it has no plans to send troops “at this time”; let’s make sure they never send troops!

Sign the petition calling for the U.S. to stay out of Haiti!

At CODEPINK, we’ve been closely following events in Haiti and are worried about what these developments will mean for the Haitian people. Check out our Haiti Project page, where you can find past webinars and messages of solidarity. And look out for updates on the rapidly evolving developments.

In radical solidarity,
Medea, Ciara, Leonardo,Michelle, Teri and the entire CODEPINK team

P.S. Join CODEPINK Congress on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET for talk and action to lift the US embargo on Cuba and express solidarity with the pink tide sweeping Latin America. We will take a look at the left in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador. Click here to RSVP!