Special Guest, United Farmworker’s President, Teresa Romero

From Pacifica Radio in San Francisco, this is FlashPoint. I'm Dennis Bernstein with Miguel Gavala Milina and Francisco Aleta. Joining us today is our special guest, United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero. What is it like for thousands of undocumented workers and their families? What's it like? What kind of dangers are they facing? We're going to find out. Also, our drumbeat coverage of Haiti and hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. facing immediate deportation. That coverage will continue on flashpoints as well. And just back from my believing organizing trip to Florida is our own Francisco Herrera. All this and more coming up straight ahead on flashpoints. Stay tuned. And you're listening to FlashPoint on Pacifica Radio. This is your daily investigative news magazine. We come to you every weekday from 5 to 6 over the Pacifica Radio Network. That's KPFA in the Bay Area. This is a listener-sponsored radio station, and it has been since 1949 when it was founded. And we're happy to be back with you. Free speech all the way. And we begin with the president of the United Farm Workers, Teresa Romero. She joins Miguel Gabila Molina and myself, President Romero. It's good to have you back on flashpoints. There's a lot to talk about. Can we just start here, though? Tell me how many workers are represented by the United Farm Workers and how many of those workers are in jeopardy of being arrested, being deported, being hurt by these very draconian policies from the Trump administration?

Teresa Romero? Hello? Okay. Not anymore. Hello? Hello, are you there? Teresa Romero. Hello? I'm not hearing anything. Maybe we... Hi, can you hear me now? President Romero? Hello? Oh, she's not hearing me. Let's take a musical break and let's see if we can figure this out, because she's not hearing me. Okay? you're listening to FlashPoint on Pacific Radio. Sorry, running into some problems here in the phone line. We're going to work that out. Joining me is our own Miguel Gavilan Malina. Gavilan, we're going to see if we can get President Romero on the line. There's a lot going on. There's a lot facing the farm workers and undocumented workers in this country. And obviously, the United Farm Workers are on the front line of this. Absolutely, Dennis. And... No, I mean, outside from, you know, agricultural workers and workers, undocumented workers in general, regardless of the job, the trade, every industry in this country at some point at some level has undocumented workers. You know, they represent 30, 33 percent of the total workforce in this country. But there's other things. I mean, yeah, and everybody's on alert. the threat by the administration unleashing what we call the dogs of ice, you know, and doing major sweeps by, you know, this time with the new Mullen, you know, the new director of, you know, ICE, the inhumane cruelty enforcement program, you know, they're coming to work sites. They're going to start rating work sites. And one of the most vulnerable workers is those agricultural workers, you know, they'd work out in the open, you know. They don't have a place to run, a place to hide. They're not in a building, in the factory, in some facility. You know, they're out wide in the open. So that's a major concern. Now, listen, Gavilan, we just made contact with President Romero and President Teresa Romero. Again, let me welcome you to flashpoints and ask you this opening question. How many people are represented by the United Farm Workers and how many of them? are in jeopardy now? Well, I, depending on the season, because as you know, many of these workers' jobs are seasonal, but between 8,000 and 10,000, when you talk about in jeopardy, if you're talking about immigration, I unfortunately, every aspect of it, yes.

Go on. Yes, yes. As you, we saw last year, we saw men, mostly men, driving on marked vehicles, wearing masks, not identifying themselves, and just walking into the fields and kidnapping our people. And we have sued the administration. We have, actually, we're going to go to court in LA on Thursday because we want to make sure that this doesn't continue to happen. These are people that come, that work, that do very important work to put food on our tables. And if you think about it, the temperatures that we're going through right now, most of us could not be outside more than a few minutes, and they are working. So their health, their well-being, and in some cases, their lives are in jeopardy. We're speaking with the President of the United Farm Workers, Teresa Romero, and we're talking about some pretty difficult situations in terms of the people that you represent. Say a little bit more about... How this has affected the entire community, the way people live, the way they act, the way the fear that they live under. How has this changed the way people's lives? It has been devastating. And not only for the adults, but we need to remember that many of these men and women have children who are U.S. citizen. And I have talked to children that tell me they don't want to go to school because they're afraid that when they get home, mom and they are not going to be there. Parents are not going to church on Sundays. They're not going to school functions. They're not getting the kids to the park or to eat a hamburger somewhere. They are going to work in coming home. And the fear, it is, there was a time that it was only the adults, but the fear is now the adults and children. Just imagine having a five, six-year-old, seven-year-old telling you that all she wants is her daddy back. Because he was staking. He was kidnapped from the fields of California. And that is devastating, not only for the family, but for the communities, for the future of these children, these U.S. citizens that are going to be growing with fear and probably resentment. We're putting them through something that no child should be going through. Dennis Bernstein here also joining us is our senior producer, Miguel Gavidlon Molina. Welcome, Gavilan. Thank you, Dennis. And thank you so much, President Romero, for joining this conversation. It's been a while since we had any kind of, you know, conversation. But one of the things that I know, you know, this week this past Monday marks the fourth anniversary where the United Farm Workers did a pilgrimage from Delene or the Sacramento.

to get the right to vote for a union of their choosing. And it was a, you know, 24-day, you know, trek. But that made a statement. It was historic. And I've noticed that the union has not stopped in its activism. It's pushing, you know, to better the life and conditions and the plight of farm workers, but also workers in general. And one of the things right now that affects everybody. President Romero, is that, you know, there's this whole wage scale change being undertaken by the current federal administration under Trump, H2A. And that in itself is disturbing, you know, trying to change that. And it seems like a federal judge rejected the motion by the union to suspend the farm wage scale. for seasonal, so-called foreign farm workers. But that in itself is shocking. The other thing is that five Democrats have cited with Republicans in co-sponsoring, you know, legislation to make Trump's farm worker wage cuts into federal law. That's like, what? As we know, farm workers are already probably the most lowest paid workers in the country. What does this move by the administration mean and explain to our listeners what does, you know, this age, 24 wage scale change, you know, mean to workers in general? You know, unfortunately, you're right. You know, in 2022, I joined farm workers. I was very honored to work side by side with them to make sure that we made it safer for farm workers to work for a union representation in California. Farm workers right now and immigrants in general are being attacked from many different places, including wage cuts. The H2 program is a program. where employers, if they cannot find the workforce here in California or in the country, they can bring workers from other countries. They come here, they work for seasonal time, and they go back to their countries. The employers are supposed to provide housing for them, because as you can imagine, when they come here for four, five, six months, it's going to be very difficult to find somebody who's going to rent them a place for four, five, six months a year. So what the administration is doing right now is absolutely, I can't even find the word disgusting. By cutting the wages of the H2A workers, these workers that come with his visa, he's cutting workers of, I mean, wages of all workers, domestic workers who have been here for decades, doing the difficult work, like I just mentioned a minute ago, right now, when the temperatures are 100 degrees, 105 degrees, they're out there in the field. And he is.

Pretty much this administration is bringing back the Bracetto program. You know, where we bring workers from other places. They have no rights. They treat them. They mistreat them. They threaten them. They cannot even speak up because the first thing they say, we're going to send you back and you're not coming back next year. So it is, and again, we're suing again the administration because we want to reverse these cuts. It is. You just said it. They are, farm workers are probably the worst paid workers. And employers, when they want to make more money, the only thing that they can think of is cutting workers' wages. And we're going to fight against that because without this workforce, we're putting it in danger, agriculture. And, of course, you know, having the ability to have the foods that we're used to on our tables. And it's interesting, President Romero, that a lot of people, the public, the general public, has this sort of concept that farm workers, you know, or just the people they see on the side, you know, in the fields, you know, picking fruit or harvesting vegetables, you know. soup down, bent over. But they don't realize that, you know, agriculture workers, yes, it does include farm workers, but also dairy workers, dairy farms, you know, cattle farms, horse ranches. I mean, it goes on and on. So it's very diversity when we start talking about the work of farms, you know, farm workers. But there is that overlaying thing, the situation where, you know, farm workers, you know, especially with the unbelievable attempt by the administration, you know, to start doing mass sweeps, you know, in the work areas, you know, work sites. Well, you know, getting away from like doing municipal, you know, Home Depot or Target parking lots, you know, they're going to go, you know, where the workforce are. So that said, you know, being out in the open, especially field work, where do you run? You can't. And with the technology, AI, and, you know, drones and so forth, you know, there's a big threat to, you know, farm workers. you know, who might have some temporary status or even, you know, some kind of permanent status or even just, you know, seasonal workers. You know, so that is a big concern. I know up here in the North Bay, a lot of workers in the fields are concerned about it's going to get even worse and worse. But that said, You know, we know how those conditions are. The wages and the seasonal wages, and recently, President Romero, we know that a federal judge kind of rejected a motion made, you know, by the union, you know, dealing with the, you know, new wage scale. So with that said,

Being rejected, are you going to file a suit? Are you going to suit the, you know, the government to put a stop to this? We already have. We already have. And we got also from all the secretaries of labor that work on their Democratic presidents, they also file a brief in support of our case. We are trying to, you know, a lot of people need to understand that I don't know that there is a profession in our country. that touches every single person. And more than once a day. And the fact that these changes are happening, like I said a minute ago, is trying to bring back the Bracetto program where they don't have a voice, they don't have rights, they don't have any ability to protect themselves. We need to remember that in this country, farm workers don't have worker rights in 48 states. They have full worker rights only in California and New York. So there's 48 states where farm workers don't even have protection. And I think this is something that is, it was done because at the time, bum workers were people of color. You know, now they're immigrants. And. They continue to treat us as if we were second-class citizen. The administration is saying that they want to deport criminals. They want to deport people who are taking advantage of our system and going and getting free medical care and free food and free from the government. But they're not going to the people that are taking at people that are working. These are people that are working very hard. And it is an excuse. It is. And one of the things that it turns out to be is state sanctioned slavery, going back, you know, to the 50s and 40s where farm workers have no voice at all. And like you said, if you do raise up, if you do complain, you get deported. You get taken, kidnapped, and deported. So again, the struggle continues. Let me just jump in here, Miguel. I'd like to make the point that, you know, this is an extraordinary moment. You, Gavilan, this isn't forgotten history. You yourself lost your dad. Your dad was dragged out of your family. by the Brissarro program. I wonder President Romero, just say a little bit more. You mentioned that twice. What was the Brissero program and could it return? You know, when you reference that, what are we talking about there?

The reserve program was farm workers or immigrants that were brought here into the United States, basically being treated as almost slaves. The first thing that they would do when they got here, there would be spray with DDT before they could access the field. They were made to work long hours. They had at that point, today, nowadays farm workers don't have labor rights. At that point, they had absolutely no right, no right to speak. Basically, the right to get up in the morning, go to work, and be quiet. Take it all. And I have the privilege of serving farm workers, people that, like I said, early, worked very hard. And we are going to continue fighting. Look, right now, people are being deported because of the color of their skin, the language they speak, or the work that they do. And if people don't understand that that's unconstitutional, then we're in big trouble. But again, we're going to continue suing. We're going to continue fighting for farm workers. And we're going to continue fighting for immigrants. The Rosetta program was a program where people were living in horrible conditions and homes made out of wood, no water, no gas. It is something that... Like you said, probably somebody in our families and our neighbors, they have a father or our grandfather who went through that. So it didn't happen that long ago. We need to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Listening to flashpoints on Pacific Radio, I believe also joining us is our own Francisco Arreda. Francisco, are you with us? I'm right here. Well, welcome to welcome. I know you've been traveling around. You've been working with some of the same people that are represented by the United Farm Workers. Welcome. Did you have a question of comments around for Teresa? I lost the last part that you said, Dennis. Go ahead. Yeah, if you have a question for the president, welcome. Oh, thank you, Teresa, for being with us. I think one thing that is over, that is completely underreported and the conscience is not there, is the hundreds of thousands of campesinas and campesinos who now benefit from a pension, Teresa. And so it's two questions. One is... Can you tell us a little bit about that experience of people being able to say, I can actually retire versus when our parents or our, when we were younger, that you couldn't even dream of retirement until you passed away. So that's one. And the other one, how these attacks on our communities are affecting precisely that ability. You know, they've been working here 10, 15 years and get deported. And what happens with that? And that is so true. What we negotiate, when we have contracts, we try to negotiate into the contract, not only a medical plan for the worker and their entire family, but also a pension plan. We know how important it is, especially because our people get to the point that want to go back to their own countries. And receiving a pension plan wherever they are in the world, it's something that is going to benefit them until they die.

Let me tell you something. A few years ago, a couple of years ago, we invited all 100 U.S. senators to work in the fields. And two of them accepted. One of them, Cory Booker from New Jersey and Senator Alex Padilla from California. As he is harvesting radishes with one of the workers on their knees, you know, they're supposed to get 10 radishes, put a rubber pan around it, and that's one of the bunches. Alex Padilla probably did five, and the worker that he was working with probably did 70. And at one point, the senator said, you are so good at this. How long have you been doing this? And the worker said, 50 years. And he says, oh, my God, how old are you? And the worker said, 70. And he says, why don't you retire? At this age, you should be just, you know, thinking of retiring and enjoying life. And the worker said, I've been working for 50 years. I pay taxes. I pay into Social Security. But I will never be able to collect it because I'm undocumented. So if I don't work, I don't eat. And that is how we're treating the people who for decades have been putting food on our table. And that is just... cruel. And the pension plan that we negotiate in our contract is a life saving for the farm workers when they retire. Exactly. Inhumane cruelty enforcement, right? As our good brother, Gabilan, likes to remind us. just the hypocrisy of the whole system of the treatment. But in terms of the right-wingers and the fascist in control right now, it's not hypocrisy because they're very honest that that's exactly what they want. Slavery for us, no? So. Yes. It's just for me that it says really remarkable. I think it's into the millions of people who benefited precisely because of the programs established and the defending of the rights of workers. I was just at the retail warehouse and department store workers union. Their national conference in Florida just came back yesterday with the music. And it was so powerful. for the Spanish speaking and the folk of the immigrant communities there to be able to stand up when we were singing Saverante la Migra, your Miranda rights into action. And, you know, right now because of the brutality of ICE and the Gestapo work of the administration, people are getting the feeling or the sense that because they break your window and tear your door down, that you don't have rights. And how are you able to deal with to convince to work with people and say, no, no, no, you still have to stand up for you. You do have rights. They're the ones breaking the law. And if they kidnap you, you still have a very strong chance to be liberated because they broke the law. But right now, how are you dealing with that sense of in?

The sense that people are having like powerlessness, like, oh, I can't show them, who cares if I show them the little red card? They're going to tear it and throw me in the jail anyway. How are you helping people deal with the empowerment of saying, no, no, no, this is, we are the law. And they're the ones breaking the law. And I can, I still need to show them the little red card, even if they tear it. And I still have a chance to get free. Yes, and you know, it takes all coming together. One of the things that this administration is doing is one, they want us to be afraid. And if we are afraid, they win and we lose. They want us to not trust each other. And if we don't trust each other, then they win and we lose. They want us to make sure that we don't speak about them, that we don't go to their homes because, oh, they don't speak Spanish because they're going to come after us. But if we're allowed that, they win and we lose. We need to make sure, and people need to understand that, yes, this administration is not following the Constitution and breaking laws every day, but people have rights and people need to understand that the UFW and other organizations. are very interested in protecting not only farm workers, but all immigrants who are here, who have been here working and producing for this country, paying taxes for this country. And like I said, one of the things that we can do, you know, in November is go and vote. That is going to make it to where we have more power and ability to demand from Congress, Congress that truly is going to be representing all of us. But this is stopped. It is not going to be easy, but we need to come together and keep fighting. That is the very strong voice of the President of the United Farm Workers, Teresa Romero. She is joining us on flashpoints, and we appreciate having you. Let me, President Romero, I believe Gavilan would probably like the final shot at you. Gavilan, did you have a final question or comment around our, for President Romero? I do. I do.

I know right now that the farm workers is conducting a survey, you know, under the sun, out of the shadows. What is that, that survey that you're doing? What impact could that have? It is a way for us to have farm workers' voices heard directly. And it is being done in a way that is safe for them because it's anonymous. Nobody's going to know who they are or what their legal status is. But many people, many consumers, people that eat the foods and vegetables and drink the milk and the beef, eat the beef, they are not aware of what's happening to the people that prefer on their tables. So what we want to make sure is that people hear from them directly, give them their own voice. to make sure that people hear and understand what it is that they're going through, what it is that is important to them, how it is that they're working, how hard it is for farm workers to go to work every day. I would ask anybody who's listening to us right now, go outside and work on your yard for half an hour without access to water, without rest, without shade. And that would give them a taste of what some workers go through every single day. And hopefully they will learn to appreciate and fight harder for these men, women, and children. Absolutely. And how can people, is this, this survey open to the public? If people want to take the survey, could they take it? It was done already. It was sent to farm workers. We're going to be doing more type of service. And we will invite farm workers in different areas that participated in that answer the questions. But this is the first one we've done at this scale, and we're going to continue doing it. And if I could just jump in here finally, I want to ask you, President Romero, do you feel in any way Is it intimidated? Do you feel that the work that you do as the president of the United Fund Workers is in jeopardy now, given the politics of the president and what he's already espoused about what he has in mind? How does that feel? How do you stand to that? No, no, no. I believe that I'm doing the right thing and fighting for the right people. I'm believing that fighting for these countries to respect the Constitution is the right thing to do. Like I said earlier, they want us to be afraid. And if we... We give in and we're afraid and we quiet our voices. They win and we lose. And I'm not willing to do that because the people that I serve work very hard and are depending on us to defend them and to work for them and to fight for them.

Thank you for joining us on flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. We hope you will keep us posted and come back again and enlighten us in terms of the struggle of the United Farm Workers. We've been speaking with the President of the United Farm Workers, Teresa Romero. Honored to have her with us today. Thank you, Ms. President, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you very much. You're absolutely welcome. You're listening to FlashPoint on Pacific Radio. I'm Dennis Francie. We're going to stay here with Miguel Gavlo-Molina. Francis Guadetti. You're just back from an interesting trip. to Florida. Gavilan, this was an incredibly important interview, wasn't it? Maybe, Francisco, you want to jump in. But I am so glad we managed to speak with Teresa Romero, because she's going to be one of the people at the core in resisting this fascism. Oh, yeah, no, that's absolutely real. And yourself and I, Francisco, we come out of those fields of misery. We know what it's like working, you know, at 100, 110, 115, and you've got to keep working. I remember every now and then the fields, when I used to get that hot, every now and then you'd hear an ambulance. you know, from a distance and you go, I wonder what will happen. But eventually that ambulance came to the field, came to the farm because somebody passed out and they couldn't wake them up. you know, heat stroke. So we know that. And, you know, when I took that walk four years ago in 2022, from Delano to Sacramento, I remember days walking where it was three digits for three days. And, you know, walking on the sides of dirt roads next to asphalt. And it was just unbelievable. And people out there stooped over. Harvesting onion, harvesting lettuce, harvesting radishes, harvesting melons, harvesting, you know, whatever. And people have no idea of the, you know, the whole wellness and health of workers working in extreme heat with no shade. And sometimes, you know, no water. You know that front of preschool. Oh, yeah, no. What do you remember, Gavilan, what do you remember about the Bracero program? It came up a couple of times in this interview. Well, you know, that was again, you know, as the president, Teresa Romero mentioned. It was a program, you know, that came out of the 50s and 60s, you know, during, you know, excuse me.

I think it was even before the 50s, in the 40s, where there was a lack of, you know, agricultural workers because of World War II and then the Korean War and so forth. And they opened the Bill Gates, you know, to allow workers to come in. And as President Reza Pahlavi Romero mentioned, when you came across the border, there was an area where they made you stripped down, literally naked, and then sprayed you with DDT. fumigated you and then you were allowed to put your clothes back on it and given a card a permit to stay to work for you know a certain amount of time seasonal work you know a lot of our parents came through that way my father came through that way but you know we saw the aftermath once the wars were over the Korean War was over All of a sudden, under the Eisenhower administration, they launched Operation Wetback. You know, first you invite workers to come in, then all of a sudden, you know, it's good times again, happy times again, and, you know, they targeted the Brown worker. And, yeah, we all know that history. All right. I'm going to have to jump in here, because we've got an incredible segment waiting coming up. We're going to be focusing on Haiti. We've been doing a lot of reporting on Haiti, and we're going to be joined by Pierre LeBosier in a moment and Walter Riley. But I just, before we say goodbye, Francisco, say a little bit about what your trip. was and what you were doing, just take a minute or two, tell us about that work. Well, it was powerful to see over 500 delegates of the retail store warehouse and retail store department workers' unions throughout the country. You know, they represent folks like REI, Guitar Center, warehouses throughout the country. And it was powerful to see the whole conference of the National Union reaffirm the defense for immigrant workers. and reaffirm the defense of contracts that include immigrant workers and not questioning whether people have documents or no documents, you know, recognizing that this is one land. It was very powerful to see that mix of different ethnic groups, different. And it was just to be there and see that affirmation. I'm thinking of, you know, in the 1930s, they did this hysterical thing before they took a million people out of. out of here of our people in 1954, like Davila said, they did it again, and two million, and very little resistance. And right now, we're seeing millions and millions of people in this country in resistance, in open defiance of this baloney and criminal act against us as working people and us.

us who create the wealth in this country. So that, you know, and then projects like Adoptor Corner, and you could see it there, you could see it in Florida, you could see it throughout, in the examples that people gave throughout the country of how they are sistering up as siblings in this nation of immigrant people. Now, so it's very powerful. to see the level of defiance and resistance to the crime against humanity that this administration is inflicting on our, on the citizenry. Amazing. All right. Miguel Gavala Malina, Francis Guadette, an incredible part of our flashpoints team. And we're going to stay on the struggle in terms of the United Farm Workers. And, of course, we're about to go deep into the situation regarding hundreds of thousands of Haitians in this country. And hell. to pay in Haiti, a hell that the United States government has been creating for decades. We're going to take a short break. We're going to be back with Pia LaVosier and our old friend, Attorney Walter Riley. Stay with us. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you, Robbie Len. You're welcome.

And you are listening to Flashpoints. KPFA Pacifica Radio. My name is Dennis Bernstein. This is your daily investigative news magazine. We're coming to you every weekday from 5 to 6 over the Pacifica Radio Network. That's KPFA here in the Bay Area. We're going to turn our attention to Haiti and to the plight of Haitians in this country now under this emerging neo-fascism under Trump. Joining us is, again, Pierre LeBosier. He's co-founder of Haiti Action Committee and Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Pierre was born in Haiti, moved to New York City in 1970 and later to Oakland. Of course, he is a treasure in this community. Also, joining us is Attorney Walter Riley. He is a civil rights attorney, longtime activist based in... Oakland, California, near where we broadcast from. And his background is rooted in the civil rights movement. He grew up in Durham, North Carolina, during Jim Crow. He knows a lot about all this stuff. We are glad to have both of you here on flashpoints. Pierre, this is your country. And the suffering is immense, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. If you were going to list some of the causes for the suffering, where does it begin? Tell us something about why we are seeing this, what's going on in Haiti now, and the suffering that seems to be endless. Pierre.

I think we lost Pierre. Hello. Pierre, are you there? Mm-hmm. Okay. Did you get a chance? Okay, did you get a chance to hear the question? Let me repeat it. Why don't you bring us up to speed, a situation on the ground? And maybe... Also, Pierre, talk a little bit about who has the responsibility in terms of what we're looking at now, the hell, that the United States policy and destabilization policies have created in Haiti. Pierre? Yes, I'm here. Did you hear my question? Yes, I hear Dennis now. Okay. I'm going to try it one more time. If you can hear me now, Pierre, say, yes, I can hear you. Yes, I can hear you, Dennis. Okay, all right. I'm going to repeat the question. Again, I'd like you to talk a little bit about the history, about what's happening now in Haiti and the multiple responsibilities that the United States government has for this hellhole, you know, this hell that they've created in your country. Oh, yes. Yeah. This is something, it's very difficult to talk about it. because, you know, this involves the lives of people who are being systematically killed. There is no other way to describe it. Their livelihood is being destroyed. Families are being destroyed. Individuals are being destroyed. I saw an article that came out a couple of days ago, and it quotes the United Nations saying that people during the past six months of 2026, close to 6,000 women have been the victims of sexual or gender violence. Over two-thirds of them were actually gang raped. Just in the month of June alone, a thousand, the number was at a thousand. Usually these are conservative estimates because not everyone reports what has happened to them, especially in terms of rape or gang rape. But this is what's happening. And the U.S. responsibility in that, it goes back. We have to go back to the early 2000. When President Arisid was in office, back in 95, when he returned from the first school data that the U.S. had organized, he had carried out a disarmament, disbanded the Haitian military, which was doing a lot of the gang rapes along with the FRAP organization. That was a precursor to the current death squad. And so they destroyed a lot of those weapons. But those weapons were the U.S. in the early 2000s, brought them back into Haiti.

and used people in the police, a man by the name of Guy Philippe, who they had trained while he was in the military and later on placed him as a commander in the police. And there was a number of them. And they were involved in drug trafficking and in various other nefarious things. So they started attacking the Haitian majority population, the peasantry from the Dominican Republic on the border. They had received a number of high caliber weapons. from the US and training in the DR. And Jeb Sprague in his book, Paramilitarism in Haiti, actually details a lot of that. So these are, we can say that in current times, these are the beginnings of what has happened. Many of these people were integrated in the Haitian police. So that was the framework. What we are seeing today, what the corporate media is calling gangs, these are actually a continuation of a systematic paramilitarized force that is unleashed against the population of Haiti for several reasons. The key of one main reason is because the Haitian majority population has always been demanding a seat at the table of decision-making, because after all, they pay taxes. This is their country. They contribute. And so they want to be able to, one vote, be able to cast a vote. Secondly, decide how their tax money is going to be used. to build hospitals, to build schools, to increase agricultural production, to be able to have decent wage, a living wage. And so it's for that reason that they are being attacked another reason. It's because many of the peasants of Haiti and many people, their lands sit on top of mineral deposits. We are talking about gold, copper, iridium, uranium. And those are the many times they want these people out or they live close to the by the seashore, places that are coveted by the Haitian elite. And they want the people in that plan that they put together called the Haiti reconstruction plan after the earthquake. They want the people to be moved out of there rather than working with people and giving them just compensation. No. They have to, just like they did in Africa, it's colonization on steroids. So they have to destroy the population and then remove them from it. So they had also laid out a blueprint. And I sent you a copy of it then. It's in a statement in 2016. Well, all of this, it wasn't a prediction. It was an announcement that this was the next phase of what the Haitian elite was going to be doing. And they actually quoted, they actually stated that they had the support of the US and France in their campaign of terror to kick black people out of Haiti and to do ethnic cleansing of the black population of Haiti. And it looks like this is what is on its way being accomplished. And I can say that during the United Nations occupation, a lot of those.

um death squad people were integrated i said it before into the police and they and they were armed and it was all under the protection of the UN that we see this massive violence um beginning to occur like in the in 20 2017 there was a massacre and 2018 another one occurred but which was pretty much an example of what was to come and there have been several others since that time now stop right there It's so hard to get this. This history is so important. It is unknown in the United States, really. And let's continue this explanation of why Haiti and the Haitians are facing such terror. Let's invite Walter Riley, Attorney Walter Riley, civil rights attorney, who has long engaged in fighting with and for the people of Haiti. I'm wondering, welcome Walter Riley back. It's been a while. Welcome back to flashpoints. I'm wondering how you can help us think about. the responsibility that the United States hold for the suffering, the extraordinary suffering, with really no ending that I can see in terms of the people in Haiti, both those trying to live in the country and those being harassed and brutalized for having left their country after the United States destabilized it.

Walter? I guess you didn't hear me. Walter? I am happy to be here. I'm not sure. I think I hear you now. Can you hear you? Is that you, Walter? The timing makes it difficult. Can you hear me now, Walter? Okay. I can, but I'm hearing two conversations of the same thing. One is delayed. Okay. So what time? Okay, I think we're having some technical difficulties. Are you hearing me better now? Maybe. Could it be? Maybe I can just ask you to... Give us your analysis of why you think the situation. I'm having some difficulty in terms of the timing of the conversation. I think it's something with delayed, so I'm hearing more. But I'm going to respond right now. Can you hear me better now? Yes. I can hear you. Are you hearing me in the right time? Okay. All right. Well, why don't you take a shot at why the role that you see the United States playing? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out when I should talk because I'm hearing myself already haven't answered. So there's a technical issue here. I can hear you, Dennis. I'm not sure you're hearing me in this time response. Obviously, okay, it's not really working. We're going to let's just continue. So I'm going to go forward here and maybe we get the timing together.

I can hear you very well. My problem is that I hear your conversation and there's a time delay, so I hear one conversation. Okay, so we need to drop this interview. We will come back with Walter Riley very next week when we can figure out the technical problem. Pierre, can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can hear. Okay. Same thing as Walter. Okay, if you can, let's just use the time that we have left here. We have about eight minutes. If you want to say a little bit. I think water should go for it. Okay, we're going to take a musical break. We're going to call Walter on the telephone and see if we can get him that way. We'll take a music break and let's see if we can get Walter on the telephone.

And we are back with Walter Riley. We have a couple of minutes, Walter. Let's use them wisely. Why don't you take a few minutes and give us your take on why the role the United States played in destroying Haiti and, you know, what you think their role has been, just so people have a sense of the politics behind it. Well, the role that the U.S. has played is one of the complete explorers and punishing the Haitian people or their liberation of themselves from slavery and opposing the empires of France, the United States, and Canada, and the international colonial movement. The people of Haiti played an international role in helping to develop revolutionary consciousness throughout the Western Hemisphere, particularly in South America, where they provided not only resources in terms of materials, but human power. that led the revolutionary movement and strategic military struggles in South America, Central America, and gave inspiration to people in the United States when people could learn about this. So they also helped people on the European continent. They played a role in the help in the Greeks. to develop an independent movement. What it meant for the black folk in the world and people of color in the world was that, hey, was an example of what can be done when people united. And the international powers, the slave owners of the new world, combined with everybody else that they could to destroy them and undermine them and create a different history and alternative history or what happened. Listen to your prior program. with the United Farm Workers and discussing the Bissarro program and discussing the history of working people trying to fight for, you know, just the impenance ability to live and live decent life. And a world where there was tremendous exportation just, you know, it leaves me at this point to be very angry, to be very angry. And I was thinking, I could only think about people rise up, people rise up, not just resist, but defy. defy this power that is causing so much human misery in the world and that is creating this ability for power to dominate and destroy us we can defy it in all the ways that we can think of and figure out various ways that need to be developed new and not accepted. But what has happened in Haiti is that as the struggle has continued for all these years, the U.S. is playing the major role in trying to undermine it, as Pierre has talked about, as you've talked about here, to undermine the ability for folks to develop some sense of empowerment and destroying the organizations that exist.

We have been in contact with grassroots organizations that are trying to liberate themselves and trying to survive at the same time that they defy the combinations of U.S. enterprise in Haiti with the liberal movement that is trying to take over the economic struggles in Haiti and the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations that are undermining the people's struggles. It takes a long time of having this discussion, but that's what is happening right now in Haiti. It is capitalism. It is imperialism. It is more power. And while these terms have been used so often, it is becoming clear to people in this country and the world that we have to change this authoritarian system. And I mean, it was criminal capitalism. It was, you know, the United States of America in its ways literally collaborated with drug traffickers to create policies to destabilize Haiti and liberation movements in the region. So, I mean, this is. Absolutely. Absolutely. And armed the people. who are destroying the community organizations, the armed of the people who are fighting to take power for their own personal gangs while they develop alliances with U.S. forces. That's what's happening in Haiti right now. There are armed groups that are being called gangs, but what in fact they are is the military operations and the arms of the U.S. State Department policies. Yes, it is true in Sudan. Okay, you got to, here's what we're going to do. You got to hold that word. We're going to bring you back next week. That's where this discussion really needs to just get started. We are out of time now, but this is exactly what we want to be speaking with you. We want to educate people in the community in terms of the real role that U.S. foreign policy continues to play in countries like Haiti and the kinds of extraordinary suffering. It's not just Trump, you know? Okay. We'll leave it right there for now. Thank you, Walter Riley. Thank you, Pierre Lobosier, and the entire FlashPoint's team. More to come next week. You both are coming back, right? Yes. I'll be here. Okay. All right. Sorry about the technical difficulties. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Thanks. Bye-bye.

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