The People’s War Radio Show, Episode #78: Organizers demand the US Stop the Deportations and Reparations to Haiti and All African People

In this episode we look at the mass deportations and brutal violence inflicted on African people from Haiti taking place at the colonial border between the US and Mexico.  In late September 2021, images of Haitian refugees, being corralled by US border patrol agents mounted on horseback at the border crossing in the southwest Texas city of Del Rio. One image showed a mounted border cop wielding a whip as he attacked African refugees. These photographs sparked immediate comparisons to images from the colonial enslavement of African people.

As many as 15,000 women, children, and men from Haiti were being held captive in barracoons under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.  Over the past few weeks, thousands of people from Haiti have arrived at the US-Mexico border.  The Biden administration has been deporting them upon arrival.  At least 2,000 migrants have been flown to Haiti and 8,000 others have been forced to return to Mexico.

The events in Del Rio, Texas are not separated from the anticolonial struggle for African Liberation. Haiti was the site of the first workers revolution and the people of Haiti will surely play an essential role in the freedom of Africans and all colonized and oppressed people.  

To discuss this with us today, we have Elikya Ngoma.  

Elikya is the Haiti Editor for The Burning Spear Newspaper where she provides revolutionary analyses on the struggles in Ayiti. Her family is from Haiti, she speaks Kreyol and maintains a close connection to politics in Haiti.  She has done extensive research on Haiti, the Haitian Revolution and other cultural and political events coming out of Haiti and the Caribbean.

Elikya is known as the Revolutionary Musician.  Elikya’s recording, “Colonial Virus' ' serves as the Intro and Outro music for our very own People’s War radio show.

In December 2020, Elikya released the album Freedom in The Mix, an African Internationalist album that combined a variety of African musical genres and promoted a way forward for African unity and liberation.  In this episode, we feature some selections from that album:

• Lanmou Pou Ayiti (ft. Gessica Généus
• Pa Di m Ayiti Pòv
• Get Up and Do Something (ft. Fannie Lou Hamer)
• Make the Struggle (ft. Ella Baker)

The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.