By Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

As the numerous layers of the Haitian saga are peeled away, what is emerging is a drama that potentially will sweep the globe in the near future.  When the backs of the masses are forced against the proverbial wall, the masses will resort to the only source of power available to them, namely the power of violence.  Jimmy Cherizier has become public enemy number one in Haiti and the international community precisely because he is giving voice to the plight of the suffering masses in Haiti who are no longer willing to play the age-old political games that allow a tiny fraction of Haiti’s population to live in opulence while the masses eke out a hellish existence.

Former president and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump struck a nerve when he labelled main stream media outlets as purveyors of fake news.  The ongoing horror story in Gaza reveals just how on-point Donald Trump was in his castigation of the main stream media networks as sources of fake news.  The silencing of Mehdi Hassan and other journalists who were brave enough to push back against the Israeli propaganda being spewed out by the mainstream news outlets eloquently demonstrates how unreliable mainstream news actually is.

Jimmy Cherizier who is repeatedly referred to as ‘Barbeque’ in the main stream media, gained the moniker of Barbeque in his formative days growing up in Haiti. The nickname seemed to have originated from his mother’s trade of selling fried chicken in the Port of Prince. Mainstream media and others however float the narrative that the name could also be connected to unproven allegations of arson and immolations attributed to Cherizier.  It should be very obvious that the mainstream media is in full demonization mode as Cherizier and his supporters are made to look like the devil or worse.

Listening to Cherizier however is the quickest way to dispel and demolish the demonization propaganda of the mainstream media. Anyone pushing the narrative that Jimmy Cherizier is the Devil, is simultaneously rehabilitating the persona of the Devil and transforming the Devil into a praise-worthy humanist. Cherizier, who sees himself as an embodiment of the great Haitian ancestor Jean-Jacque Dessalines, is adamant that his revolution is designed to bring down the reign of the bloodsucking oligarchs who are responsible for the squalor and misery that is pervasive among the poor masses of Haiti.

Leaders in the US, the EU, the African Union, and the Caribbean should be paying careful attention to what is going on in Haiti. The poor masses in Haiti may not have jobs and sufficient food to feed themselves and their families, but mysteriously, they are armed to the teeth with high powered weapons and they are adequately supplied with ammunition. As the armed groups in Haiti coalesce under a central command, it will become increasingly more difficult to impose an external solution on the armed Haitian masses.

The coalition of armed groups in Haiti is undoubtably the strongest power broker in Haiti. An armed populace with an agenda that does not align with the agenda of the ruling class is a nightmare scenario for global leadership. Whereas, peaceful protest by the masses can topple regimes, armed resistance by the masses can change the world.  Haiti may therefore prove to be the first shot fired in a new revolution that will usher in a great global economic reset.  

Central to Cherizier’s rhetoric is the demand for a general redistribution of wealth.  In true Robin Hood style, Cherizier advocates taking from the wealthy -by force if necessary- so that the poor can live in dignity.  The Catholic Church in its preferential option for the poor has gone so far as to state that the poor can take from the rich what they need to survive.  The backs of the Haitian masses have been driven to the wall and the world is about to witness how far poor people with guns will go to get their slice of the national pie.

Haiti may very well be on the cusp of a second revolution that could act as a catalyst for similar revolutions globally.  A small minority enjoying most of the resources of the world is not a sustainable model.  Eventually, the masses will realize that politics and elections are just games played by the elite to perpetuate their disproportionate control of the world’s resources. Since governments are institutions of the elite, it is inevitable that the masses will have to wage war with governments and their security agencies to affect significant wealth redistribution.

Sidelining the armed groups in Haiti has already doomed the provisional council to failure because the armed groups will view the provisional council as an imposed solution on Haiti by the same people who are responsible for the misery in Haiti.  The United States of Amnesia would do well to remember that it was rag tag armed mob of American patriots who coalesced under the leadership of George Washington to give the world the American Revolution and the American nation.

CARICOM leaders should persist in their efforts to bring a resolution to the crisis in Haiti.  However, CARICOM leaders should not be afraid to remind Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and newly appointed US ambassador to Haiti Dennis Hankins about the revolutionary past of the US. CARICOM leaders agreeing with American foreign policy goals in their entirety will only place CARICOM in the crosshairs of the armed groups in Haiti.  Bringing Cherizier and others of his ilk to the negotiating table is the right thing to do if a long-lasting nonviolent solution is to be found that will get Haiti beyond its current impasse.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro- Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.