4. Martial Law in Haiti

Variedades, Lima, 13 December 1929

The methods of the United States in colonized Latin America have not changed. They cannot change. Violence is not used in countries under Yankee administration just by accident. Three events during the past five years underscore the increasing martial tendency of U.S. policy in these countries: the intervention in Panama against a strike, t he occupation of Nicaragua, and the recent declaration of martial law in Haiti. The rhetoric of goodwill is meaningless in the face of these events.

As in other countries, the military occupation of Haiti includes a group of Haitians who claim legal representation of the majority as vested by the imperialist forces. The enemies of freedom in Haiti, the betrayers of their independence, are without a doubt the most repugnant to a free Latin American sentiment. Hispanic America has long experience with these types of things. One begins to understand that what will save it is not the admonitions of U.S. imperialism, but a thorough and systematic work of defense, conducted with firmness and dignity, by those who will have by their side the new [progressive] forces of the United States.