The Duran Podcast
Haiti, facts and fiction w/ Dan Cohen and Kim Ives (Live)
>> Okay. We are live. We are here with Alexander Mercudis. How are you doing, Alexander? >> I'm doing very well and very delighted to be on this program with people who are able to explore this very important subject and we're going to be discussing with us today and discussing properly. >> Yes, we have with us today the fantastic, fantastic journalists. Occupatory filmmakers, two gentlemen who know what is happening in Haiti, Dan Cohen, and Kim Ivies, and you can follow their work. I have all their links in the description box down below and I will have their links as a pinned comment as well. But Dan and then Kim, where can people find you? Plug the places that people can subscribe to your work. >> Mm-hmm. First of all, thank you guys, Alex and Alex very much for having us. Great to be on the stream, big fan of the show. My work, so I have my own site I founded called uncaptured Media. You can go to uncaptured.media, which just goes to my sub stack where I publish. On Twitter, I'm @dancohen3000 and @uncapturednews and then our documentary which Kim and I made together called another vision inside Haiti's uprising. You can find that on my YouTube channel, on uncaptured media's YouTube channel, under playlists or also on Haiti Liberté's channel, which Kim is the English language editor for Haiti Liberté. So on either of those places. >> Fantastic. Kim? >> Yeah, well, I'm much easier to find. It's just basically haitiliberté.com. That's Liberty with E on the end. And our YouTube channel is Haiti Liberté as well. And where you'll find the films, the series, another vision. >> Yes, fantastic. And I will have all that information as a pinned comment as well when the live stream ends. So a big hello to everyone that is watching us on Rockfin, on Odyssey, on thederad.locals.com, Rumble and YouTube. A big hello and thank you to our moderators. We have a lot of important stuff to discuss. So Alexander, then Kim, let's get to it, Alexander. >> Well, indeed, let's let's absolutely because this is a very important subject. It's a fascinating subject. I should say that when it comes to Haiti, it's a place which, in some ways, I feel I'm very familiar with, in other respects, not so much. I was very familiar with because, you know, I was reading C. L. James's book, The Black Jacobins, about the revolution in Haiti, against the French in the 18th century, led by Toussaint Louvert du. All the way back when I was a student, and there was about the same time I remember reading Norville by Graham Green, the comedians, about the time of the, of Papadoc in Haiti, the very brutal dictatorship that existed at that time, which was in the late 50s, 1960s, 1970s. It dragged on for decades, that very cruel dictatorship. And yet, in a kind of a way about the internal, what's actually going on in Haiti today, it's very difficult to get news. One hears that things are very difficult there. We have an uprising of some kind going on in Haiti at this present time. But reports about it give us incredibly little context, very little information. It's all explained in a very sort of simplistic way. And if we're talking about the current uprising in Haiti at the moment, it's basically, if you go to our media in Britain, for example, where I live, it's all about a collapse into chaos, takeover by violent criminal gangs, a descent into massive disorder, with the outside powers, primarily the United States and Britain and other countries, doing their best to try to keep the thing, taking together and helping it along, but always being confounded by the forces of disorder in Haiti itself. And that's never seen to me to be a remotely satisfactory explanation of the events in Haiti. So it's actually a great relief to be speaking today to people who actually have some understanding, who actually knowledge of the subject. So with that, rather lengthy introduction, let's get on. We are looking at an uprising in Haiti at the moment. Lots of things being said about it by the media. Is it indeed a criminal takeover by drug gangs moving to oust a government which for all its imperfections has been doing its best? Is that what the situation in Haiti is really all about? I mean, that's what the impression I get from reading "The Guardian" and listening to the BBC, but does that actually describe the situation we have at the moment? I mean, either of us can feel this, I guess. Maybe I'll take a stab at it and then pass the baton to Kim. I mean, I would say that is the complete inverse, the description you gave of drug gangs taking over the country. Basically, drug gangs have been running the country in the form of political parties and the gangsters are not guys in sandals so much, but rather guys and big weapons that are worth more money than they'll ever see in their life in the slums, but they are the elites in offices who fly back and forth from Miami to Port-au-Prince and maybe live elsewhere and have their kids live in another country and go to school in another country. And they traffic drugs, they pay criminals, they pay armed groups to do their dirty work, these kinds of things. This has been the status quo of Haiti for a few really, I guess, since this is what has emerged since the US essentially decapitated the Haitian government and essentially Haiti with a series of coup d'état's against the its first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown by the US first in 1991 and then again in 2004. So now we're seeing basically Haiti organize itself, the masses who live in the slums, in the ghettos, in the worst conditions that I've ever seen. I mean, if you go into the slums and you see people, I mean, we see pictures of it, you know, when they talk about the horrors of Haiti and people living in tin shacks, these sprawling slums and they collect water from the rooftop or from the ground and there's cholera everywhere and disease and sickness and people can't live in these conditions. So we're seeing them basically in a sort of organic way rise up from these slums to reject this regime that has been imposed by the foreign powers, principally the United States, but also by its kind of imperial subcontractors in Canada and France. So that's how I would describe it. Maybe, you know, Kim will be able to give, I think, a much more, you know, his own take. No, let's say, I'll just compliment yours with any compliment. The right, of course, too. But the group that Dan is describing are what the Haitians call the gangsters in ties rather than the gangsters and sandals. And, you know, it strikes me how similar it is if you look at the beginning of the US imperial epic at the early 20th century, late 19th century. You look at the old Harper's magazine cartoons and, you know, it shows that people of Haiti, in case of that intervention, and I think it was the same for the Philippines and, you know, Nicaragua and other places they went in, as children, you know, just basically savages children. They're African, you know, they're basically, they don't understand democracy. They can't deal with it. This is foreign to them. We have to come, you know, big brother near pictures of Teddy Roosevelt with his big stick, you know, coming down, sort of leading a tutu train of boats to encircle these rebellious children's savages. And this today is basically the same picture they're coming with, you know, of course, with a little more modern frills. And I think that, you know, this is just it, the demonization, they're cannibals for God's sakes, you know, they're just so, and I would even date the beginning of this rule of the gang and ties back to really the fall of the Duvalier regime, which you made reference to Alexander, where, you know, there had been a struggle throughout Haitian history between really two ruling classes, the, what are called the grando, which are the big landowning class, which Papa Doc and baby Doc more or less represented. And then the comprador bourgeoisie in the cities. And so Duvalier is 29 year reign from 1957 to 1986, essentially put in place one big gang called the Tonto Makout, who have all their their security and asylum, which Graham Green so brilliantly illustrated. And that kind of brought the country into this estate of stasis, we could say for, for that three decade period. And after that was broken, because the US paradigm for how it handles its neo colonies changed at that time, they used to use the strong armed dictators, you know, Pinochet, Samosa, Batista, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, etc. Duvalier and Haiti. And they started to say, you know, this isn't working because one, they're very corrupt. And a lot of things we send to build a road for the US company working there gets embezzled. And two, they're creating too many Che Guevara's too many revolutionaries. So we have to come with a new formula, which Edward Herman called demonstration elections, where we do the election, we put in our puppet the same way they do here in the US, you know, candidate with the most money wins. And then we're going to conserve that, we're going to send the army back to its barracks. And we're going to conserve it with the international peacekeeping force. That is the UN now becomes the guardian of the empire. And in place of Duvalier and his sort of corrupt clique of Claptocrats and McCoots, emerged this this cupboard or bourgeoisie with no longer the grando break on it just blossomed. And a lot of these, this bourgeoisie actually are were refugees at the beginning of the 20th century from Syria and Lebanon and Palestine. And so in Haiti, they called them either the Lebanese, they give them an Arab name. And they're seen really as the the main culprits in many cases they are, but as far from just those members of the bourgeoisie. And so really, yeah, the picture becomes much more complex. And so anyway, this is the underclass really the lumpen proletariat of Haiti. And we can get into that more later how this is really a new phase, I could say, and not only the disintegration of the empire, but the case of world revolution happening. And this is the uprising of the lumpen proletariat saying we can't take it anymore. I think a lot of people are not aware of how long for how long the United States has been involved in Haiti going all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century, that in fact, it occupied the country militarily for a certain period. And how intensely it continues to be involved in Haitian affairs ever since, well, then basically. Let's just deal with the people who we have been hearing so much about recently. As I understand it, the prime minister or acting prime minister who has just stepped down, he has never been elected at all. I mean, we haven't even had a, you know, a parodic election to elect him. And he was actually, as I also understand it, selected to stand or persuaded made to stand after the murder of the previous president in some kind of a Colombian hit back in 2021. He was selected by the ambassadors of in height, height 80, who are in, in fact, basically the United States. Is that correct? I mean, he's, and he was an completely unelected figure who was in some way widely believed to be implicated in the murder of his predecessor. Have I got this correct? Because this is a bit, I find this, I find this, in fact, a bit confusing. And were there any plans to hold elections at any point with respect to this person, prime minister, who have I just been talking about? Let me take that down. Go ahead, go ahead, yeah. Yeah. So Aria Lunri had, in fact, been nominated to be the prime minister of Jovenel Moiz, who was using another guy called Claude Joseph as his interim prime minister, because the guy before him had resigned. So Aria Lunri was the prime minister who'd been selected by Jovenel two days before his murder. And that was arrived at really through negotiations from the former prime minister, Jovenel's, I could say mentor, a guy called Michelle Martoli, and his prime minister, a guy called Laura and Lamont, and they had a conference call and he said, well, I'm thinking about Aria Lunri. Anyway, Martoli was really pushing him in. He'd been a collaborator of Martoli, and we can go into that later. But, and then the assassination happened two days later. So before he could be even be sworn in, he was supposed to be sworn in on that Wednesday, the seventh, but at 1.50 on that day, Jovenel was executed in his bedroom, machine gun by the Colombians. And so now there was a kind of an unclear period and Claude Joseph for two weeks ran the country. And, you know, it looked like he was going to take over. And then suddenly the core group, which had kind of supported him, said, no, no, we're going to use Arielle, who is kind of the core group being the ambassadors. Is this right? These are the US embassy aligned ambassadors, right? It's it's basically, you know, the US is always surrounding it with a bunch of quizzlings. So they do it in the case of Haiti too. And basically they've run Haiti for the past 20 years since the 2004 coup. They used to be called the Friends of Haiti. They changed it to the core group. So now the core group in a tweet, in a tweet basically put this guy in power and he was running ever since. And the US was standing four square behind him despite challenges from a sort of a bourgeoisie, a clearly a group of enlightened bourgeois group, which was trying to put a few more democratic frills on the machine, but also working essentially to get Washington's nod. So essentially, yes, he had a hand in the coup. It is believed because the guy who told the Colombians to machine gun Jovnel. He wasn't in the room, a guy called Joseph Felix Badio. Got a phone call from the Colombians. They described him. He said he's black, he's skinny, and he's about five foot, whatever, you know, we describe Jovnel. And he said, yeah, that's the guy kill him. And they kill him. So now Badio three hours later makes two phone calls to Arielle. And lasting seven minutes, the phone records show it. And when asked about it, I don't remember, I was getting a lot of calls tonight. He talked for seven minutes to the guy. So that's the most clear evidence that he was involved in the coup somehow. And there's a lot of rumors, I believe him myself, that he was harboring Badio in a number of cases. So he was somehow involved in the coup. And maybe this was planned even well before Jovnel even tapped him. So in any case, it's a very, very busy team scenario. So in effect, what we're talking about is a leader of the person who was leading Haiti was never appointed to that post by anybody in Haiti. And he was selected by the United States and its friends quite openly. It's just done without any real concealment. After a group of hitmen murdered the previous president, who was a rather a rather questionable personality as well, as I understand it. So this person has never been, anyway, the person who just resigned was never actually appointed to that post by anybody from inside Haiti. He was appointed from outside. Is it also correct that it was the Americans, the Blinken told him to stand down a few days ago? I mean, is this perhaps Dan Tim Kim? Could you confirm this as well? After this uprising took place, when it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to remain in control, the Americans told him he was outside the country. You've lost control, you must stand down. There was even a meeting, apparently. Is this direct? And am I getting this information correct as well? Yeah, I mean, the reporting, you know, that's come out about Ariel Henri's resignation is that he, well, basically what happened was Ariel Henri had departed the country, I believe on February 29th, to go to Kenya. He left 27. Okay. Two more to Karakami then from Karakami went to Kenya. Right. Okay. So he goes to Kenya in order to basically sign a bilateral agreement with the Kenyan government led by President William Rudo in order to have a force of 1000 Kenyan special force police officers come to Haiti in order to fight these so-called gangs, these armed groups, just basically stamp out this uprising. And the US has been for months, I mean, really, for a couple of years trying to cobble together some kind of coalition of the willing, knowing that we can't send US Marines, US troops directly in because Haitians won't really go along with that. They're very sensitive to foreign intervention from the United States for obvious reasons because of history. And so they basically want to get a blackface on it, the US Blinken had tried to get Karikom to do it. You know, some of the members of Karikom had agreed the Bahamas, you know, had said they'd send a few cops. But what are, you know, a couple of Bahamian traffic cops going to be able to do against armed groups who were in their neighborhoods, in their nests, in the slums of Haiti, you need some kind of more powerful force. So they went to Kenya, which is the top recipient of US aid in Africa, second to Egypt, and has a notoriously brutal track record. In 2009, there was a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Philip Alston, I believe his name is, who described them as death squads, these Colombian police units. And so basically what's happened is there's never been accountability in the Kenyan police when the death squads, you know, the news comes out that there are these death squads, then they kind of, you know, officially disband the unit, reshuffle them, and then it emerges somewhere else. And they continue to do the same thing. So this is who the US is trying to get into Haiti to lead this force. So Aria Lanri goes to Kenya in order to do this. And when he's coming, when he comes back, that is when the armed groups led by Jimmy Barbeque-Sherizier, who's kind of the central figure in what's happening now, who, you know, everyone's hearing about, he, they went and attacked the airport, attacked some police stations in order to force to prevent Aria Lanri from being able to land. So he goes, I believe, to New Jersey. And then he tries to go back, he tries to fly to Port-au-Prince, and on the way, he gets a call from, I don't know if it's Blinken himself, but basically, from... He tries to fly to Santa Domingo. Right, right, right. Okay, wasn't he first diverted to Santa Domingo? No, no, no, he was going to Santa Domingo and they were going to fly him over in a helicopter, and then they then they aborted the Santa Domingo front and go to San Juan. Yeah, so then they sent him to Port-au-Rico instead, and now he's under FBI protection, but, of course, you know, Kim, Kim actually has a pretty bombshell report that he published this week that, well, yesterday, yeah, yesterday, from, you know, a very high ranking source that Aria Lanri is under arrest by the United States and is being interrogated, and they're thinking of sending him, basically giving him to this new sort of regime that they want to install in Haiti as a sort of sacrificial lamb. So, I mean, it's all very fraught, and it's really, I would say, a desperate attempt by the U.S. to try to cobble together to keep, you know, the wheels on so they can get this foreign force into Haiti to stamp out this ghetto uprising is really what's happening. And just to add, the reason they really have to use a proxy force, Alexander, is because the end goal, the end goal is a thing called the Global Fragility Act. This is the past under Trump, and the essence of this is that they bring in U.S. troops, they basically set up a U.S. military base in Haiti, and they put Haiti on a lifeline of U.S. humanitarian aid. And the whole point of this, this Global Fragility Act, is a response to China's Belt and Road Initiative, because they see the continent, they see Africa, Latin America, everybody going over to China. So they're trying to build a bulwark against it, and Haiti is one of the last countries in the world. They're only 11 now that recognize Taiwan as the actual China, and so they're very anxious to keep Haiti for that reason. And also, as we go to war with China, they need a place where they can make all their, you know, electronics and clothing cheaply, and Haiti, it's five bucks a day, the cheapest in the hemisphere. So this is the reason why. So they need this proxy force to stamp out the rebellion, make the election, and then the elected government can ask the U.S. sign on the dotted line for the Global Fragility Act. But so the U.S. didn't want to be too obvious to go in, put in a government, it asked them, they did this in 1915, and everybody cried foul. They don't want to do it again. Who are the people who are leading this uprising? I mean, you mentioned some names. Are they actually people with real roots in Haitian society, or are they people who also will be in the end, brought over to the side of the United States and the other forces that have dominated Haitian politics since the removal from power of Aristide? Dan, I think you got that one. Jimmy Sherry's yeah. I mean, either of us can go on about this. So yes, the key figure, the central figure, the one who is in all the headlines as the leader of the cannibal gang, if you see it on Twitter, as you know, the most dangerous, the most notorious gangster in Haiti, is a guy named Jimmy Sherry Zier, his nickname is barbecue, which, you know, is perfect for the American, the Western media to run with, and the cannibal story. And, you know, if you watch, for example, Vice News, they'll say, which has actually led, really led the disinformation campaign for three years now against Sherry Zier. They say that he got his name because he likes to burn his victims' bodies. He likes to light people on fire. In reality, he got the name when he was a kid because growing up in the streets in his neighborhood, there are a lot of other jimmies, and his mother sold grilled meats on the street. She was a street vendor, and so he became Jimmy barbecue. And so he's always had that name, and it's used very affectionately by his supporters. So yeah, Sherry Zier is a former police officer, came up, you know, from the gutter, basically, into the Haitian National Police, was exemplary, worked in an anti-gang unit called Udmo, and he was very good at his job. He was well-respected, well-regarded among the ranks, and what happened is essentially he was involved. He led an ad hoc operation against gangs in a neighborhood that basically, without, you know, for brevity's sake, I won't get into all of the details so we can get into kind of the very contemporary moment. But basically, this anti-gang operation went awry. They thought they were just going to collect some weapons that were sword in a school, and they were ambushed by some criminals who had weapons and killed some of the cops. There was a firefight between the cops and these gangs, these gangsters, and a bunch of people died. You know, we don't know exactly how many. It's not clear exactly who they are, but the principle, basically, so barbecue goes, you know, goes back to the base. The next day, the cops, the police congratulate him. They do a ceremony congratulating him and thanking him for his bravery with the prime minister, with the prime minister, and then days later, the principal human rights group funded by the NED in Haiti, which is essentially an extension of the US embassy, publishes a report that calls what happened to massacre, and the police need someone to blame, so they blame Cherizier. So all of a sudden, it's all over that Cherizier carried out this massacre, and he becomes, you know, the bad guy, enemy number one, and he's like, you know, thrown under the bus by the police after his career of hard, dedicated work risking his life to fight criminals. And so that alienates him. He's eventually fired from the police, and at the same time, he's very much a social leader in his community. He is a social leader in an area called Lower Delma. Delma being this kind of main road, and each street has a number, he's in Delma 2, 4, and 6, and so he's a social leader. He, you know, gives people money for what they need. He supports the community, this kind of thing, and he began to create this social program where they had clean water for the residents of his neighborhood, where there are basically no state services, so they have clean water, they have, they provide security from criminals that are, you know, extorting businesses, kidnapping, raping, robbing, murdering, so they start, he and basically the locals in his neighborhood, he organized them to fight back against these criminal groups to kick them out, as part of this kind of program that is essentially revolutionary in character within the neighborhood's borders. And so for that, the US basically began to, this NED funded human rights group, which has played a very, which basically served the same role in the lead up to the 2004 coup d'état against that receipt, pumping out disinformation, inventing massacres, is now reprising its same role. So against Cherizier, they recognized him as a threat early on before Haiti Liberté understood what was going on in that moment. And, you know, I mean, I didn't, I didn't quite get it until I reached out to Kim of Haiti Liberté, and then we went to Haiti. So basically, what's happened since then, there's been this process of Jimmy Barbeque Cherizier, former cop, turned, you know, social leader with a gun outside of the police. He said, he basically got to a point where he said, look, this system is corrupt. It is totally against the people. There's no hope within it. It's just run by criminals. So what we have to do is unite the different armed groups, the criminals and the anti crime units. And so first he created something called the G9 family and allies. That was an alliance of anti crime groups that sought to fight and defend themselves from the criminal armed groups that were basically on the payroll of the oligarchs where they would go and they would commit massacres, they would go and burn down businesses, basically do the dirty work of the elites. And so Cherizier and the G9, these nine different neighborhoods. And then he also had the G9 family and allies. So basically other groups that he had negotiated essentially non-aggression packs with, even if they are criminal in nature. So he basically started, he's trying to unite all of them. And as he's fighting them, he's very reluctant to actually fight them. What he would go on, you know, on the radio, or he would make public appearances of YouTube videos where he would get down on one knee and say, let's not fight anymore. You know, he's at a funeral. Let's not fight anymore. Let's unite. We have weapons. Let's turn them against the elites who are keeping us in this situation. And you know, he would, it was very fraught. He would get an agreement with this group of criminals in this group and this group and they would stop fighting each other. And there would be an actual benefit to the masses. But then some oligarch would pour a bunch of money in, you know, to one group to attack it, to try to break up this alliance. And so this kind of, this has gone on for a couple of years. And finally, last fall, September of 2023, and we had been there just, you know, week or two before, Cherizier announces an alliance of, of almost all the armed groups, the two basically main, the two main groupings. There's the G9, which is his, the one that he led, and then there's the, the G people, the JPEG, which is the criminal grouping. And he basically united these, which, I mean, honestly, you know, Kim and I had been skeptical while he's telling us this is his idea, like, how are you going to unite with criminals, you know, guys that that do horrible things? How can you unite with them? But he previously, he told us that he couldn't do that. You know, in another, in another moment, I mean, he had, he had told us both before he had told us, you know, it's the way it is. I don't have a choice. You know, what do you see any of their option? You know, you have to unite with them in order to change the country. And they're from my same social class. So they're victims of the system too. And so we were skeptical of this approach. And so she, in November 2022, 2022, for example, he changed his tune in a way, because what happened is the government of Arielle Henry, the de facto prime minister, at the behest of the United States and the IMF imposed, they took away fuel subsidies. So the price of a gallon of gas, skyrockets, their mass protests in the street. And after a couple weeks of those protests, Cherizier and the G9, they went to put barricade. They created a barricade in front of one of the main fuel terminals in Port-au-Prince. And his demand, the main one. But I mean, as it turned out, there are two others in the vicinity, which, you know, the mainstream media narrative was this guy's creating a fuel crisis and everyone's suffering because of him. But we went down there at the time, flew my drone around, and we saw, wait, there's still gas coming in over there, and there's still gas coming in over there. So it wasn't what they were saying wasn't true. However, he goes, holds up the fuel terminal, blocks it, so no fuel can come out of it for about two months. He managed to hold this off in total opposition to the IMF and the US and its puppet regime of Arielle Henry. And then Canada ended up sending in some armored vehicles for the police so they could overrun these barricades. And there were some very heavy firefights. He was also attacked by some of these criminal armed groups. And he realized, you know, we talked to him at that point. We did the first interview with him after this whole situation ended. And he said, I can't ally, how might, you know, how can I ally with these guys who are criminals who do, you know, who kill and rape and rob? And I think, and it was, and it was a very, you know, principled statement, and we agreed with him. And I think since then, what he's realized is I cannot go with this alone. He's not, he doesn't have enough firepower, enough money, enough men in the G9 to be able to fight these other criminal armed groups and the elite and a foreign invasion. So he basically went to his, he sort of went to what he was thinking before and said, I have to find a way to unite these guys. So he, so he continued to basically preach unity between the armed groups. And, and that's what this, this vivansam concept, living together concept that he came up with, that he announced in September 2023 was. And so it's not an endorsement of those criminal armed groups, but it's basically, we're going to fight against the elites. So it's the situation, if I could jump in. Yeah, go ahead, Kim. I can jump in. It's a little bit like Mao Zedong, aligning with Shanghai Shek to drive out the Japanese in early 40s. And even in Haitian history, you have two of the founding fathers, Jean-Jacques Desalines and Alexander Petio, Jean-Jacques Desalines, who basically represented the freed slaves. And Alexander Petio, who basically represented the mulatto elite, as they sometimes call it, that's a little bit of a misnomer, but it was the Afrashi, the freedmen, who had kind of a different class interests. They'd been bitter enemies, they'd both been French generals, but they were bitter enemies, but they allied in May of 1803. And that alliance was what won them the first Haitian Revolution. And on the Haitian flag, it says, the unity makes strength. So this is a kind of a similar replay in history. Can you tell us a bit about the situation, the economic and social situation Haiti now? I mean, we've had lots of, I mean, there's lots of stories about how ground down poor it is. There's also been the effect of the earthquake that took place recently there. How bad is the situation economically and socially in Haiti at the moment? In Porto France and other places? Well, I remember my mentor, Ramsey Clark, one of my mentors, was telling me before I was deployed for a trip after the first coup d'etat in 1991. And he said, "I'll send it always sounds bad from a distance." You know, when I got there, in fact, you find that people are going about living their lives, etc. And Dan and I just had to fly up to Cape Haitian on our last trip down there last month. And you know, you fly over the Haitian countryside and people are out, you know, tending their farms and doing their job. So a lot of this is happening in what they call the Republic of Porto Prince, about 3 million people out of Haiti's 12 million or so, who, you know, live in this area, I'll say probably six or seven square miles. On the, sort of at the mouth of Haiti at the bottom of the mouth. So, yes, the Haitian economy, since the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986, has undergone a very drastic neoliberal structural adjustment, as they call it, where the agricultural base, Haiti was 80% peasant at that time, and produced coffee and sugar and mangoes and plantains and a lot of things. But this has been crushed by dumping from the US rice, for instance. The need valley used to be, you know, the breadbasket of Haiti, rice, which is a staple of in the Haitian diet, which produced there. And Bill Clinton, with his Arkansas farmers with their combines a mile wide, were able to dump, you know, very cheap rice. So a Haitian peasant with a ho is competing against the guy with a mile wide combine, you know, it's no contest. So they crushed the rice production, they crushed a lot of that production. And so this peasantry fled to the cities. And, you know, we see this across Latin America, across the third world, as we used to say. And the population, it went from 80% peasant to now maybe 50% or maybe even less. So that 30% went into the cities, Port of Prince, when I started covering Haiti in the early 1980s, late 70s, it was 500,000 people. Now it's 3 million. And this is the case for the other Metropoles as well. So these people are living basically hawking soda pop on the streets. And they can't live like that anymore. So yeah, it's a very dramatic situation. And that's one of the things that's given the rise to these neighborhood committees, which, as we were mentioning before, have become the state. They're the ones who handle all the people's needs of their neighborhood. And some of them turn to crime to finance their health or taking care of their people. So it's say, that's really what explains these pictures of flaming barricades and people running around that you see on CNN. Can we go back to Aistid? Because the coos that led to his overthrow actually cut through in the sense that I think it was one of the things that the informed western public did notice and were rather upset about. I mean, I couldn't remember. It even got into James Bond Phil. I mean, the the quantum of solace, partly partly in set in Haiti. And there's even a brief reference there to the fact that, you know, the priest who became president was overthrown, partly because he'd actually wanted to make conditions for people better. And this oddly enough said by the villain, one of the villains in the story. You said that it really starts the dissent into this sort of regime that we have of people who are controlled from outside by the United States. It really, and not just the United States, but, you know, this oligarchical, very cruel, cruel, dealigitimate regime. The situation that we have now basically starts with Aistid. There's an awful lot said about Aistid at the time. I mean, he was represented, as you correctly say, as a negative figure overall. What actually happened with Aistid? Why was there so much opposition to him from the United States, from Hillary Clinton, as I sort of well remember, from people like that? And was that, did that opposition to him find a mirror among people within the country as well? If we just explain a bit about that? Yeah. Okay, I guess I should take this stand since I lived through it. The, and you weren't born yet, or barely born. Oh, I was, I was, I was six years old one. Yeah, six years old. So I think you have a better grasp on it. Okay, good. So, um, yeah, it really begins with the fall of the devalue regime. And the US thought this was going to be an easy fix. They said, we're going to do it just like we've done in a few others, because this whole new regime change from, uh, strong men to demonstration elections began a few years earlier. So they said, okay, we're going to push out Duvalier, and we're going to, we have this World Bank economist, a guy called Mark Bazin, who we're going to, you know, simply insert, we can just elect him. So, uh, they knock out the, uh, Duvalier regime. And, but there's four or five years, basically from 86 to 1990, where the population, it's a genie coming out of the bottle. And in the beginning, they kind of say, okay, Mark Bazin, Mark Bazin, but very quickly, there's a anti-imperialist sentiment growing in the population. And I can say, uh, modestly that the paper I worked with, I think, called Haiti Prograde, had a big part in this radicalization, which, you know, wrote about the American plan for Haiti. And as one British journalist, Greg Chamberlain, I don't know if you've ever knew him, he used to write for the Guardian. And he once told me on the porch of the Olafsen, the hotel that Graham Green immortalized in the comedians, he said, Haiti Prograde made Aristide. And so, uh, the population becomes more and more radical and anti-imperialist. And it's, uh, growing to the point where there's finally the, um, showdown between this liberation theologian priest who emerged from the slums of La Saline, where Dan and I have spent a lot of time filming of late. And, uh, the showdown totally was a malfunction of US election engineering. They thought that it was going to be a cakewalk for Mark Bazin, but instead, Aristide runs away with the election when they stopped counting, which they didn't want too much of a humiliation. He was at 67% of the vote out of a field of 11 candidates. So this was the first great malfunction of, uh, US election engineering. And he took the election. And, um, in fact, he became the model for what became the pink tide, because Hugo Chavez saw this in Venezuela and Abel Morales saw it in Bolivia and so on and so forth. And pretty soon we were having these elections, uh, that we're putting in leftists of some sort, uh, across the continent. So Haiti was the first, as always. Haiti is always the Vanguard, uh, 1804, 1990. Aristide comes in the USA. Okay, this is wrong. We got to fix that. So they, they carry out a coup in September '91. And, uh, again, they think that'll be easy enough to do, but it isn't, uh, three years of, uh, repression against the people and they still keep going and going. And finally, by this time it's gone from Bush one to Clinton and Clinton says, gosh, we got to try something. So let's bring him back. Let's bring Aristide back, but we'll bring him back in a cage. And we'll bring him back having to sign on to the neoliberal project. So Aristide does come back, but he uses a policy known in Haiti, uh, of, of resistance, uh, dates back to slave times where you don't openly, uh, reject the master, but you kind of don't follow his instructions exactly either. When he says, you know, uh, step to the right, you know, you step to the left or you, you know, you kind of do this, uh, slow walk. And so that's what Aristide did. And the US got vexed with him and they kicked him out. They didn't give him back the three years he'd spent in exile during that '91 to '94 coup. And plus they brought in, and this was Aristide's giant mistake. This was the biggest mistake he made because the Haitian constitution says no foreign troops on Haitian soil, 1987 constitution. And he invited in the UN peacekeeping force. He put Haiti under chapter seven. So this was all the US needed essentially to now have open license, go into Haiti. And they did so. They brought him back on their shoulders, but to put in a plan. These slow walked in. It went to a second guy who was often considered his ally, but they were really erstwhile allies. And he did a lot of these neoliberal reforms. And so this brought about really the neoliberal state we see now, which is, you know, basically crushing what existed of the Haitian state. And this was always the US plan. I remember reading a USAID document, you know, 40 years ago, which said, you know, we have to change the, you know, I forget what the word was, modalities of governance. And essentially it was, we have to give it to the NGOs to run. We don't use the state anymore. We use the NGOs. And so Haiti now is called the state of NGOs. So a colleague of ours just came out with a book called Id State, another fellow we know, Tim Schwartz wrote a book called The Great Haiti Humanitarian Aid Swindle. These are both interesting books. People should check them out. I haven't read Aid State. But in any case, the essence is the state became so debilitated that we've ended up with this kind of lawless situation. And the NGOs, instead of really taking over, it's been, you know, these neighborhood committees and some of them criminals, some of them vigilante. But that's kind of brought us to the situation where we are today. Let me ask you both gentlemen, the next question, the obvious question, where do we go from here? Can a governmental system emerge out of this uprising, which is more connected to the actual life of Haiti that might actually lead Haiti forward economically and socially, that might at last fulfill some of the promise that the Haitian people have been given, you know, the better future. I mean, or will it be the same again that it will encounter this enormous resistance from outside and undoubtedly also from some people within and that will have, you know, the pendulum swing back. And, you know, the old regime will be restored in some way. Is there a potential out of this uprising for something new and different and substantive to come out? And what policies might it follow? Big question, but any thoughts about that? I'll take a stab and then give the mic to Kim. I mean, you know, we've been saying, you know, Kim, myself, Kim's outlet Haiti Liberté, which, you know, Haiti Liberté is a Haitian outlet. Kim is the English editor, so we're very much led by Haitians in this work, this endeavor. But we see Haiti is on a revolutionary process right now. And so with that, of course, the United States, as we, you know, detailed before, is seeking to stamp it out, to strangle, you know, the infant in its crib. I think, so, you know, this could go any which way. I don't see that the U.S. is in a particularly strong position. It's in a very weak position. First of all, having to scramble to get some kind of force into Haiti, which is really not going well. Even, you know, right now, the money that the U.S. the State Department wants to support this force is being held up in Congress because they turned in some half-baked proposal. The Kenyan force is only 1,000. And, you know, there are obviously at a great disadvantage invading a country where you have armed groups that have some very heavy weaponry, some of them, that are, of course, in their own neighborhoods, can blend into the population basically as any, you know, guerrilla resistance can. The Kenyans do not speak Creole. They don't even speak French. They speak English and Swahili. So they're going to, if this actually happens, it's going to be a total disaster for the Kenyans themselves. And, of course, for the Haitian population. And it's very fraud. It's kind of held up. So who knows if this actually happens? Say this revolution succeeds. You know, they manage to put in their own native government. The Haitians have their own government where the masses have a say. I mean, I think anything can happen at that point. I mean, basically what the US has done is trained a sort of NGO soft power class that they are the ones who are vying for basically for power. And the US has been planning to put in for years. They saw Ariela and Ria as what they called a transitional figure. So the idea was to get, you know, a friendlier face of liberal imperialism ruling Haiti through these figures that they've been training for years and years through the, you know, the NED, the the the IRI, the the NDI, these kind of soft power organs. But these ones are very much sidelined too. And they are, you know, on on Twitter these days, I'm getting attacked relentlessly by them. They are the ones, you know, who are attacking me the most. So they're equally threatened by the prospect of Vivansam, by an actual, you know, revolution coming up from the gutter. You know, when we talk to Sherri's EA about what what is your vision for the country? And he and he talks about this, you know, you can see him talk about in our in our documentary, another vision. He basically talks about the conditions of the country that you have 5% of the population that controls, you know, roughly 85% of the country's wealth. We need a situation where all of the children of Desalines, as he calls them, can have a future, can go to school, can go to university, can, you know, these kinds of things. So what exactly does that mean? You know, it's, it's, it's very, it's very wide open. And there are also other players who are kind of in the mix alongside Sherri's EA. So I think basically if, you know, they succeed in, in basically taking back their sovereignty from the United States, then you might see some of the conflicts come out, maybe the knives come out even between some of the figures who are kind of vying for it. But, you know, as the U.S. in this period of the rise of the multipolar world, as the U.S. is losing its grip, it's of course involved in an endless, you know, war in Ukraine that is not going, as it hoped, it failed to achieve regime change in Russia, obviously. And this Gaza conflagration, which is a genocide, you know, you have to wonder how much juice does this declining empire have in order to kind of subdue the unruly island of former slaves, kind of at its, at its doorstep? And I would just add that, you know, these junctures historically of epochal change are very fertile for revolutions. I mean, if you look at the Haitian Revolution, that was with the emergence of the bourgeoisie in Europe, you know, coming up over throwing all the old monarchies. And so, you know, it really worked. There was, there was some disarray we could stay in the ruling classes. I mean, we saw it on the other islands, Barbados, you know, the Royalists were fighting in bourgeois. It happened, of course, in Haiti as well. So it offers an opening. And right now, in with the decline of the U.S. empire and emergence of the multipolar world, the brick world, we could say, there is an opening where Haiti really doesn't have the power of the U.S. readily available. I mean, we saw it even in the Second World War, during the Second World War, we saw the emergence of a lot of nationalist leaders, Vargas and Brazil, Ron and Argentina, Arbenz and Guatemala, Mosedek and Iran, you know, so you see all these leaders who later were smashed down by the CIA and MI6, et cetera, to restore the power. But right now, there is some kind of opening. Right. Gentlemen, just two quick questions then. Very quick. Firstly, in Haiti, because we talk about revolutionary situation in Haiti. I mean, Haiti has had one of the great famous revolutions, the one that happened, which we've referenced before, the one in which Petillon and Desalim and Tucson were all involved. Do people in Haiti today remember that? Does it give them any sense of inspiration? Does it give them any sense of, you know, encouraged? Do they remember that revolution at all? And both of you, you've seen Haiti, you know Haiti so well, do you feel any sense of hope at the moment that this is the moment when it will finally break through? Because Haiti won its first revolution and yet one sense is that the fruits were stolen in a kind of a way. They had to pay this colossal subsidy in effect of the French who'd enslaved them. They had to go on for decades, paying a huge proportion of their funding to the French. And then of course, the Americans came. Is this the moment when they will finally break free? Well, I guess I could start this one, Dan. Yeah, I mean, every Haitian walks in glory for what his ancestors did. And there's constant reference. I mean, since you're a kid, Haitian, so I was raised in a Haitian household, you know, it's been to you, you know, how, how you have this historical role to play as your ancestors did. The first and last successful slave revolution, the touchstone of the revolutionary change on the continent of Latin America, of South America, because it was of course the Haitians that gave the Bolivar all his boats and printing presses and arms and even soldiers to to win over the continent. And you see the Haitian flag and all the flag of the northern South American countries. You'll see the blue and red with the yellow band above it. So the Haitian population today is there. I could say the rebellious revolutionary essence of Haiti born in 1804 after 13 years of revolution is in the DNA of Haitians. And so I think yes, this is what gives me great hope that this revolutionary process, even though they might send the 80s at second airport to try and crush it and finally, but I think the Haitians may very well prevail. Daniel, thank you very much. This is me. Oh, well, Dan. No, no, no, that's I think Kim summed up, you know, I share those sentiments. It's a rare moment of sort of revolutionary optimism, which has been kind of a fresh breath of air after just while the ongoing horrors of the Gaza genocide, which, you know, I spent a lot of time in Gaza and Palestine, and I know the place intimately. So it's so in total contrast to that, Haiti is, you know, given me kind of new life in a way these these last few months. I was just thinking 82nd born division, going to succeed in Haiti when Napoleon failed, which is actually not likely. Anyway, I can get your hand over to Alex now. I'm sure that I'm sure he got questions we've gone on. But I mean, it is such a compelling and important story that I think we needed to. So I'm going to transfer to Alex. And I'm sure he got some questions to ask. Yeah, you guys got time for a couple of questions, because certainly totally are there are quite a few questions. Let me just, there's so many questions about the Clintons. So let me just bundle it up into one general question. Can you can you explain Dan, Kim, what is the truth about the Clintons involvement in Haiti? Okay, just a broad question, but there's so many comments and questions about the Clintons. So I mean, I'm just kind of summarizing. Yeah, well, it all stems from the story, even though it's not exactly true that they honeymooned in Haiti. In fact, it wasn't their honeymoon. It was their second trip as a couple, but they did spend time in Haiti back in the Duvalier days. And yeah, but I think there has been quite a rapport, if only because politically, Haiti was part of Bill Clinton's rise to power. It was essentially Bush who carried out the first coup d'etat. And Clinton said, I'm not going to pick up the refugees off the high seas, although he flipped on that and started to do so, starting Bush and Clinton both really started Guantanamo as Haitian holding center. That's how Guantanamo got its start. And I mean, as a place to keep people you don't want to bring into the US justice system. And there is a lot of talk about the Clintons are invested in Haiti. Well, it seems I have it on a pretty good source that it is true that Hillary Clinton, or I'm told, I haven't seen the evidence, but owns on the order of 1800 acres of very important land in Haiti, starting in Bela Dere on the central plateau going down to the Bay of Port of Prince, which is where there's natural gas and that BP, you see Jonathan Powell over always coming. He's made 16 trips to Haiti apparently since 2021. And there's another guy in Haiti called Emmanuel Parret, who was part of this whole deal that happened recently between Haiti and Venezuela, where Haiti paid off its $500,000. They paid Venezuela $500 million to settle its petrocaribigat, which was $2.3 million basically, Venezuela, $8.8 billion. So anyway, there may be this natural gas. They talk about oil. We were told by a source that would probably know that you can see oil oozing out of the island of Gannab, which is that little island in the middle of the Bay of Port of Prince. And people, it is proven about there being about $20 billion worth of gold dust in the mountains of northern Haiti, but you have to blow up the whole mountaintops and then sluice it with cyanide to get at it, thereby destroying the water table. So there's a lot of talk about the resources of Haiti and the Clinton's involvement in it. Hillary Clinton's brother Rotem, I forget his first name, he died. He was part of one of these gold companies looking for that gold. So yeah, I think the Clintons have, I don't know if it's central to all the Clinton financing, but I think the Clintons have played a role. And of course, they're a flashpoint, not only for the right of the US, the right wing quarters, if we can refer to right wings anymore. But for many people, the Clintons are a flashpoint and for many Haitians they are too. You answered another question which people had, which was about the minerals in Haiti. So yeah, that was... I tend to think though, since geopolitical positioning between Cuba and Dominican Republic, which has become sort of the new Cuba base, you know, where all the corporations are based in Dominican Republic. So Haiti, if it goes Cuban, Communist, this is a big threat against US bases and US power in Dominican Republic. Okay, thank you for that. For from urban philosophy, for Dan, if the US fails to stop the revolution, is it realistic for China and Russia to replace the US and help Haiti rebuild and stabilize if a new leader was appointed and protected by them? And if so, what's the timeline if this is possible? Well, I mean, I think any leader in Haiti who's genuinely looking out, I mean, any leader anywhere on the geopolitical, anywhere in the world, who's looking to improve the conditions in their country, genuinely, is of course going to be looking away from the unipolar order, which is... I mean, in fact, this is something we didn't address, but it's kind of important to understand, is Jovino Moiz, the president who was assassinated back in 2021, that is one of the things he began to do. He was basically put into the presidency to do the bidding of the oligarchs and the establishment political party that was in power, but he eventually began to look elsewhere because he had some development projects he wanted to do. He wasn't really from the political machine, he was a banana exporter who was kind of plucked and put into power. And so he started, he went to Turkey, and I believe he, maybe Kim, you have a little more detail on this, but he... I think he met with the Russian ambassador in Venezuela. So basically... He received the Russian ambassador, he received the Russian ambassador, took his letters of credentials, as it were, like two months beforehand, and apparently was trying to resuscitate the relationship with Maduro because he basically betrayed it at one point under big pressure from Donald Trump, read him the riot act at Mar-a-Lago during a meeting. So he became the hood ornament on the US tank, working against Maduro, and... Supporting Wang Guaido. Supporting Wang Guaido and all that. And then he kind of said, "Wait, this isn't working out too well." Decided to go back and started these talks with both the Russians, Venezuelans, and seems that's where the US said, "Okay, we've got to give this guy the heave ho." Right. So that's a process that even Jovina Moiz, hardly revolutionary by any stretch, he began to do. So any world leader is going to say, "Okay, the neo-liberal model imposed by the US at the barrel of a gun is not working for me. I want to develop my country, okay, what are the other players in town?" Of course, China, and of course, Russia. And so if the revolution does succeed, I think that's something that, of course, would be a natural question or a natural process. The Russians have expressed their willingness, and their public statements, have expressed their willingness to help mediate political crises in Haiti. And so it would make perfect sense if either of those countries did. I think China actually has an event. $4.7 billion they offered Haiti to overhaul the infrastructure of Port of Prince, which has no sanitation, no electricity, no telephone service, no, you know, it's a mess, as you can see in the footage on screens all over the world now. So they offered that that was six years ago now, seven. And, you know, of course, the US said, "You're not doing that." And that's going to be one of the big questions. I think the first thing any revolutionary government would do would be, you know, get in touch with the bricks. Yeah. I mean, and also, you know, Haiti has a power, has a real chip to play with the Chinese because Haiti is one of 12 or 13 countries that still recognize Taiwan. If we don't count that Vatican, right? Okay. Okay. 11, 11 countries that recognize Taiwan. So, you know, that's another reason that Haiti is very important for the US. So if, you know, Haiti were to flip, then, you know, that obviously is an important piece on the geopolitical chessboard. Right. Great. Tisham says, "Thank you, the Duran and guests and lover of the Russian team says, 'I'm pleased you got that going on the Duran.'" And another question about Obama. Why, what was Obama's role in Haiti and why did he not help Haiti? Take it away, Kim. Okay. Obama administration. Yeah. Obama, well, you know, that's basically Clinton light, if you will, or Clinton dark. It was, I could say he, you know, one thing I always think is interesting in the US, if you have a drop of African blood, you're black. In Haiti, if you have a drop of white blood, you're a blonde, you're white, you're a foreigner. So even though Obama would be a blonde in Haiti, but he was, it was welcomed by Haitians when, when he came in. And I think they had hoped for more, but he did nothing more. Basically, that period from 2008 to 2006 was, 16 was a period where it descended even deeper into the neoliberal abyss. And I remember one famous bit of footage where then President Renee Praval was at some meetings ahead of state and it met Obama and he was totally, you know, getting with the light. And at one point he wanted to introduce a friend of his to Obama. And so he goes over to Obama and starts to sort of tap him on the arm and Obama sort of brushes him off. So yeah, I don't think Obama really saw Haiti as the vaguardation that it historically has been. Right. Let's do a couple more questions and then we will let you guys go. Can you explain Dan or Kim the relationship between the DR and Haiti, Dominican Republic and Haiti? Well, I think it's a whole other Durant show, but yeah, but go for it. Go for it. Go for it. You're going to do a job. So, okay. So DR has the ignominious historical distinction of being the only country in history who has chosen to go back into colonial status. The Haitians freed the Dominican Republic in from 1822 to 1844. Dominican Republic was Haiti. And in fact, they would receive up on the little, it's called the Samana Peninsula up on the north of the Dominican Republic was where a lot of African-American arrived slaves from the United States at that time. Freed went there and set up a colony. So, because Haiti was supposed to be where anybody was enslaved could come and be protected and be freed. This was again before slavery was abolished throughout the hemisphere or the world. So, but the empires worked it so that basically the Dominicans threw off the Haitians throughout the Haitians. And now when Dominicans celebrate their independence, they celebrate it from Haiti, not from Spain, but from Haiti, imagine. So, there's this campaign has been done the same way that you see the brainwashing here or the brain dirtying here to create. The Dominicans have been taught from infancy again to really revile Haitians and revile even Blackness. Even Haitians, Dominicans who have African blood, they'll say, "No, no, I'm a, it's Indian. It comes from the Taino Indians, the Arawak Indians who were here before. It's not, it's not African blood." So, this shows the depth, the extent, the power of the brainwashing that's happened. So, in short, it's been a very difficult tense relationship and you'll never see Dominicans, even though they're clamoring for it, invade Haiti for the US or anybody else because of that tension, it would really, that would be a nuclear explosion. So, the border nonetheless is regularly crossed by both. And the people are essentially across over, you know, Dominicans married to Haitians, Haitian married to Dominicans, all along that border that you see running up between the two countries. So, there's a lot of fraternity as well. Okay. Final question from Mr. Bluish. Dan, how can NGOs play constructive role in Haiti? And Dan, or Kim, second part of the question is, can either of you comment on NGOs like the Lambie Fund, which seeks to assist the popular democratic movement by working with community organizations? Are you familiar with that, Kim? Yeah, we can take the second one first, you can take the first one. Yeah, Lambie Fund, it's sort of a liberal, progressive ish posturing, at least. I don't know it in depth. I've known some people who have worked for it. I don't have anything bad to say about it. I know they mean to do well, it seems, from what I can see, by giving money to peasant organization or a woman's group here and there. But a little bit, I think it's a part of the NGOization. I mean, there may be a role to be played for some of that progressive NGOization. But it's not going to change the fundamentals. It's more or less nipping at the corners of the problem. But as far as I know, Lambie Fund is not a bad initiative. Yeah, I mean, I don't have much to add to that. I mean, my view of, broadly speaking, of NGOs is not terribly positive and are often a kind of tool of soft power. And Haiti is the picture of that. But that's not to say that every NGO is bad or that NGO workers go with bad intentions, may have the best of intentions, and perhaps can play a positive role. Despite the way to hell being paved with those. Well said. All right. Thank you to Dan Cohen and Kim Ivys. Once again, where can people find you, Dan, and where can people find you, Kim? I'm on, I'm on X formerly known as Twitter at Dan Cohen 3000. My, my site is uncaptured media, uncaptured.media. And please check out our documentary, Another Vision, Inside Haiti's Uprising, which you can see on that YouTube channel or on Haiti Liberté's YouTube channel. And soon to be on its own website called Another Vision, Haiti.com. We're going to move everything to there. So we don't have to give people such a confusing roadmap. And I can be found my writings and work, even though I write sometimes for, you know, the intercept or the nation or other journals. But mostly for Haiti Liberté.com, Haiti Liberté with an e.com. And my handle on Twitter slash X is Kim Ivys 13. Fantastic. I will have all that information as a pinned comment. And you can also find all the information in the description box down below. Dan Kim, thank you very much for joining us. That was fantastic. Thank you, Alex and Alexander. Thank you very much, you guys. Thank you. Thank you for having us on. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Wow. Great show. Thank you to to Kim and Dan for joining us. Absolutely. I mean, Haiti is such an interesting and important place. So much said about it that is so profoundly wrong. Yeah. Alexander, let's answer some questions on the Netherlands. Let's go over to the Netherlands from Paulie Dutch outgoing cabinet voted yesterday for taking the lead and getting hold on the confiscated Russian assets. How low can a country soon? Well, indeed. Well, the Netherlands has been positioned for quite a few years now on, you know, the sort of radical anti-Russian end of the EU spectrum. A lot of this supposedly dates back to, you know, the events around MH17, which of course was blamed on the Russians and the investigation that was run within the Netherlands over MH17. I think to some extent, intentionally found a lot of this anti-Russian sentiment in the Netherlands. I suspect that there's also been a reaction to it as well. We saw that in the last election when the Wilders did remarkably well in the Dutch elections. We see also how despite that, he's been frozen out. He's been stopped from becoming prime minister. It seems that he's not ever going to become prime minister of the Netherlands. I can't say I'm surprised. And now they come up with these terrible ideas, which as I understand it, even the United States is pulling back from seizing assets. Cactus Ray, think if that's a sticker, Stephen, welcome to the brand community. Let's see here. Elena says, "If the neoliberal order stands in the West, are we all going down in different flavors of Haiti?" Well, I don't think it is going to stand for much longer. I think it is looking increasingly precarious. I think there's a growing backlash against it within the United States itself, which is why you're seeing all these extreme political tensions there, which appear to be getting stronger all the time with the election looming on the horizon. And I think it's failing. I mean, I think it's failing in Ukraine. It's failing in the Middle East. It's failing in all sorts of places. And if you want to see a catalyst of it, an indicator of it, look at how many countries congratulated Vladimir Putin on his election and look at which countries they are, the most important countries around the world outside the collective West. And now quite clearly coming out, expressing their disagreement with this order that we're seeing, and they're doing it in the way that they know will infuriate the West most intensely, which is by congratulating Lucifer's representative on Earth, Vladimir Putin, who's just one re-election in Russia. Christopher, welcome to the drag community. F-22 Daniel says, "Any news on Gert Vilders, not much is talked about him since the Dutch elections." I've just described over a couple of days ago. He made an announcement saying that he didn't expect to become Prime Minister of the Netherlands, and that he's going to concentrate on promoting his programme, because he's attempts to form a government exactly as we predict it have failed. Jerry says, "A.M. Alexander, first we share a birthday, so belated. It'd be for you, enemy." Yeah, thanks. Again, I should do this properly. Today, we were still doing a few things, Katherine and I, about my birthday, but I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has sent me a birthday. Congratulations. It's great here, by the way, that we share a birthday with someone who is a member of the community, if I could say. I've been very moved by all the good wishes that I've received, and this is my opportunity, my friend, to extend good wishes to you. It's nice to know that we share a birthday together. Happy Birthday, Elza, says, "I was wondering if referring to the cannibals in Haiti, people actually mean the Clintons and their foundation looks like I was right." I think you both. Let's see here. Summer of 1970 says, "Thanks to Rand. Momma Laska says it's horrific. The US continues to do Tahiti." And let's see here, from Odyssey, questions from, let's see, breaking bread about the Clintons at Haiti. So, a lot of questions about the Clintons and Haiti. And breaking bread says, "Americans are broke, time to take care of our own. For die, I choose life, Jesus, King of Kings." Absolutely correct. If you know anything at all, by the way, about the history of Haiti and the United States, the United States actually had once fairly good relations with Haiti when it was a republic. The sense that they had a kinship together. Now, just to say, last night, as a birthday celebration, my wife took me to watch Hamilton, the musical. And Alexander Hamilton, person who was great admirer, greatly supportive of the revolution that happened in Haiti. I happen to know that. Ms. Texas-Jesus, happy birthday, Alexander. Thank you very much, Ms. Texas-Jesus. And Alexander, two questions from actually last week's live, which came in when we signed off. But let me get these two questions to you, and then we'll wrap things up. From Rebel King, the Western governments read the book, they read the book, The Art of War Backwards, and got it completely wrong. And Sparky asked, "Did Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II not visiting Israel stem from the bombing of the King David Hotel?" It could very well be, actually. I never thought of that, but it's entirely possible. The bombing of the King David Hotel took place during the campaign of when it wasn't ill-good, but it wasn't ill-good. Anyway, a Jewish group led, but I think by Menachem Begin, who became eventually Israel's Prime Minister, the British were running Palestine at that time under the mandate that they'd previously been given. They were, at that point, setting their face to some extent, at least, not entirely against the setting up of the state of Israel. And there was a campaign against them, an insurgency against them. Over the course of it, there was this explosion. There was a bombing attack on the King David Hotel, which is still an important hotel in Jerusalem, I understand. British soldiers and officers were killed. There were other incidents in which British soldiers were captured, were executed. And it's entirely plausible that the Queen, the late Queen who would have remembered all of that, that that put Arof going to Israel. It is well known, for example, that she did not want to visit Russia until the Romanovs were buried. Apparently, she even said that to Boris Yeltsin when he visited Britain. She insisted that before she visited Russia, she wanted Nicholas II and his family. They bought their remains to be found, to be given a proper burial, because she felt very strongly about that. So it's entirely plausible that she may have felt something about the King David Hotel effect. I don't know this for a fact, I should stress, but it would be in character. Well, interesting about the Romanovs. Okay, Alexander, that is everything any final thoughts before we sign off for the evening? Well, I think we've had an amazing programme, actually. I was just said to come back, I learned an awful lot. And I really do hope that Haiti finds its way at last. I mean, this country deserves it. I mean, after all that has gone through in its history, I mean, it needs, but if a country needs a break, Haiti is one. And it's got an extraordinary culture and lots of resources, as we've heard. Finally, that it can fulfil its promise and become a fully active and engaged country within the global community and a happy one as well, as it deserves to be. One final comment from the Alkali is the political class, the court sensing that with free speech platforms, the leaders can speak directly with the people and they lose power to influence. They cannot convince the emperor of the fine new clothes anymore. I think you're absolutely putting your finger on very important issues, which we have to be careful what we say. But nonetheless, I think you're basically correct. All right. Thank you to Dan and Kim once again for an excellent show. Thank you to everyone that joined us on Rockfin on Odyssey, the dorand.locals.com and on Rumble and YouTube as well. And a big thank you to our moderators, reckless, abandoned, Zarael. Peter is with us. Tish M is with us. And who else did I miss anybody? I'm just scrolling through right now, Alexander, to see the moderators. I don't think I missed anybody, but if I did, I apologize if I did, but thank you to our moderators for always helping out. And Alexander. Indeed. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Back tomorrow in the meantime, again, also thanks to everybody and to the community for your questions and to our moderators for your indispensable work. Thank you. Take care, everybody. [BLANK_AUDIO]