Image is of the American military during their occupation of Haiti at the beginning of the 20th century, taken from this NYT article from 2022: Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged.
In the aftermath of the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and his replacement by Western comprador Ariel Henry, the situation in Haiti is the most dire it has been in decades - by some metrics, even worse than the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake (CW: rape, violence including against children). Millions do not have enough food. Outbreaks of disease are rampant. The government - such that it still exists, which is becoming increasingly debatable - has only a minority control over the capital city, with some estimates putting the influence of armed groups at 80%.
America's search for somebody, anybody, to intervene in Haiti has ended, with Kenya answering the call. President Ruto has announced that he will send 1000 police officers to Haiti. Kenya's Foreign Minister has tried to sell this intervention as pan-Africanism. Other Caribbean states, like the Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda, have offered to send police officers too.
I can't really say it any better than the Black Alliance for Peace's own statement:
Kenya has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to “restore order” in the Caribbean republic. Yet, their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name; an occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face. By agreeing to send troops into Haiti, the Kenyan government is assisting in undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of Haitian people, while serving the neocolonial interests of the United States, the Core Group, and the United Nations.
There is an urgent need for clarity on the issue of occupation in Haiti. As described in a recent statement on Haiti and Colonialism, Haiti is under ongoing occupation. No call for foreign intervention into Haiti from the administration of appointed Prime Minister Ariel Henry can be considered legitimate, because the Henry administration itself is illegitimate. BAP has repeatedly pointed out that Haiti’s crisis is a crisis of imperialism. Haiti’s current unpopular and unelected government is propped up only by Haiti’s de facto imperial rulers: the unseemly confederacy of the Core Group countries and organizations, as well as BINUH (the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti), and a loose alliance of foreign corporations and local elites.
Henry and the UN have made a mockery of sovereignty by mouthing the slogan “Haitian solutions to Haitian problems,” yet finding the only solution in violence through foreign military intervention. After repeated failed attempts to organize an occupying force to protect their interests and impose their will on the Haitian people (including appeals to the multinational organization, the Caribbean Community [CARICOM] for troops), they have now found a willing accomplice in Kenya, an east African country with its own set of internal problems.
Indeed, what’s in it for Kenya? An opportunity to both train and enhance the salaries of local police forces and garner a patina of prestige, or at least bootlicking approval, from the West. And for Haiti? White blows from a Black hand and a further erosion of their sovereignty.
And, by the way, here's the Black Alliance for Peace's statement calling for no intervention by ECOWAS in Niger, calling the organization a Western comprador organization similar to CARICOM's role in Haiti.
Welcome to our friends throughout the Lemmyverse!
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third update might not happen because I'm busy dunking.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
Bhadrakumar's take on the events in Niger are pretty much in line with our own.
It's worth noting the Russia-Africa summit (as we barely discussed it):
He goes over Niger, France, ECOWAS. He predicts that there will be no military intervention by Nigeria:
I think the point to take home is this:
The following is quite a funny quote given Russia's own actions lately. Comparing a potential Nigerian invasion into Niger and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is apples and oranges given the historical context of NATO's military march towards Russia's borders (or, as libs would see it, Russia putting their bases and cities closer and closer to our troops), but still a funny quote in a vacuum:
At the end, he mentions Nuland's visit and concludes that she was really there to try and stop Wagner from getting more involved, but was unsuccessful.
her surname literally meaning "new land" (it's Dutch) feels a little too on the nose
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Her mother's maidenname was G(h)oulston, which I think ended up being pretty apt.
Always looked ghoulish eh
I chuckled but don't try this one on libs, they'll think they can invalidate imperialist critique by gotcha-ing you because her dad (born Nudelman) chose the name to avoid anti-semitism
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I wish there were communist bars
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Noodleman? Now I am hungry.
More like noland cuz everything got destroyed by chemical weapons.
Have they not been told to fuck off yet? Why France and not the US?
There is fun to be had with the libs that justify invading Niger by saying that they're using logic that also justifies Russia invading Ukraine because of the 2014 removal of the president.
a) I feel like anti-France sentiment is much more potent in these countries than anti-American sentiment, though there still may be some of the latter (given Nuland's reception, quite probably), and b) France is looking quite weak and divided right now (it's certainly eyebrow-raising that this is all happening as France experiences worse and worse internal turmoil, though idk whether that's a factor in the coup-plotters minds) whereas the US is still a major force to be reckoned with. No point pissing off two imperialists at once if you can get help it.
It's a lot easier to get popular support against the people who colonised you and whose language you still use, rather than the far distant one that austensibly helps keep "jihadis" in check, which I assume the locals are also somewhat interested in.
Because the deputy leader of the military junta in Niger was very friendly with the US. There's photos of him accepting US arms shipments on the AFRICOM website, back when he still worked for the previous government. Also it's not like the US has colonised Africa in the way Europe has, outside of what happened in Liberia
Some articles in German newspapers have been uncharacteristically reasonable over this coup thing, including pointing out French colonialism and the resentment over this, popular support for the coup, terrible poverty, unequal trade, corruption and fake democracy, etc. Since they typically follow a US policy line, this makes me think the US doesn't mind this coup really. Would be interesting what the French newspapers have to say.
Meloni in Italy has recently criticized French neocolonialism too.
I do wonder then if the US did have a hand in things, but Russia is getting Wagner in there to tip some scales away from America. I'm not really convinced but it's one hypothesis to marry the "The US did it to weaken France/Europe" and "It was spontaneous/helped along by Russia and is a genuinely anti-colonial movement"
I'm having trouble getting any non-paywalled articles describing the position of Melenchon and the left, but from the snippets in Le Monde one gets the sense of "Well shit, we kinda had this coming because we didn't handle the situation in the Sahel correctly, we need a debate in parliament over this"
It's uncharacteristic in that whenever some coup happens (that the US cares about, even if there's no good reason why German interests would care), most of the stories either go full "there was no coup but even if there was that's good" or "this coup is totally unacceptable democracy democracy democracy waaahh". Not with this one, they don't go full in on any side really.
I know that Algeria claimed that the UAE was behind the Niger coup, and we maybe have a better relationship with them than anyone else in the Middle East that isn't Israel. I still don't buy that the US is behind it, though.
Pretty sure the italian far right is just still mad at France for Libya
I remember Le Pen criticized it during the previous presidential elections.
She then tied this to her right wing anti-globalism, anti-immigration, and nationalism but still even the French hard-right can see it for what it plainly is.
Foreign interventions are not popular in Germany, despite the moralizing of the “gardeners”. Russia is perhaps the most acceptable target due to “historical baggage” and mania.