On Oct. 2, the UN Security Council voted to approve a "multinational security support mission" in Haiti—ostensibly for the purposes of stopping gang violence and restoring law and order. Led by Kenya, this multinational force will be comprised of security forces from mostly Caribbean and Latin American countries. Despite receiving the blessing of the Security Council, this "security support mission" is not an official UN mission. Rather than being funded by the UN, the mission will be primarily funded by the US, which has already committed $200 million. This latest military intervention, should it materialize, will be the fourth foreign occupation of Haiti in 30 years. While the UN Security Council, the Haitian elite, and the ever-obedient corporate media spread a lurid narrative of a country engulfed by bloodthirsty gangs, the real situation in Haiti—not to mention the true story of how it got there—is far more complex. To understand the situation today, we must look back to the role of the US and other countries in the Core Group in dismantling Haiti's democracy and sovereignty over the past thirty years of military interference. Dr. Jemima Pierre of UCLA and Booker Omole of the Communist Party of Kenya speak with The Real News to break down what's going on with the latest foreign invasion of Haiti, and why Kenya of all countries has been tapped to helm the operation, at least officially.

Jemima Pierre is Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology at UCLA and a research associate at the Center for the Study of Race, Gender and Class at the University of Johannesburg. She is the author of The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race and numerous academic and public articles about Haiti, including a very recent essay originally published in NACLA, and now reprinted at The Real News, called “Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory.” Pierre is also an editor for Black Agenda Report and a member of Black Alliance for Peace.Booker Omole is the National Vice Chairperson and National Organizing Secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya.

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