[Months after Haitians began asking “#KòtKòbPetwoKaribeA? Where are the PetroCaribe funds?” in August 2018, a new hashtag emerged: #NouPapDòmi. Ramping up pressure in the growing anti-corruption movement, activists camped out in front of the Court of Auditors in Port-au-Prince in December 2018. They dubbed their action Nou Pap Dòmi, meaning “We are watching,” or literally, “We are not sleeping.” The Court of Auditors, at the time due to release an initial report on the PetroCaribe scandal, later implicated several government officials and business figures in the suspected embezzlement of nearly $2 billion in funds earmarked for development and social projects. As a collective, Nou Pap Dòmi (NPD) became a current within the grassroots PetroChallengers anti-impunity movement.

In this interview with Mamyrah Dougé-Prosper and Mark Schuller, NPD members James Beltis and Vélina Charlier discuss the movement, their collective organizing, and the prospect of a long-term project of building political power in Haiti. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.]

NACLA: How do you in NPD understand the political situation of the country today?

James Beltis: Today, we understand that the country is facing a long-standing systemic crisis. Since the assassination of [Haitian liberator] Jean-Jacques Dessalines, we have not succeeded in orienting the country towards the path of progress in the interest of all. It is a country that has managed to build itself for 200 years by excluding the majority of the population. It is a state built on social injustice on the one hand, and corruption and impunity on the other. So, the situation we are currently experiencing is the continuation of a succession of crises that the country has faced since independence. The first erupted after the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines [in 1806], then there was the Caco-Piquet episode [in the mid and late 1800s], then the U.S. occupation [from 1915 to 1934]. The most recent was the crisis of 1986 [when the Haitians ousted the Duvalier regime]. And since then, our transition to democracy has been marked by periods of turbulence and political violence with various abuses against the population.

Of course, Haiti is not solely responsible for the failure of our democratic experience so far. The international community, particularly the United States, has played an important role in this regard by manipulating the electoral process to favor candidates in their interest and by imposing neoliberal policies that have proven harmful to the country’s economy. In the current crisis, Washington, especially the Trump administration, has played an important role in providing unconditional support to the Haitian Tèt Kale Party regime and President Jovenel Moïse, despite the PetroCaribe corruption scandal and various human rights violations, including massacres in the popular neighborhoods of Bel-Air and La Saline.

This crisis has prompted young people to get involved in the fight against corruption. This is how we joined. Corruption and impunity are at the root of the Haitian crisis. A few benefit from public wealth to the detriment of the whole society—with impunity. Because these issues expose the nature of the Haitian state, it is difficult to address them without disrupting the foundations of society. There is no way to create cohesion between people and the way things are. The social contract is broken. The country is in total disarray.

NACLA: How does NPD come to agree on its analyses or the types of actions it takes?

Vélina Charlier: Nou Pap Dòmi is a collective of PetroChallengers. It is composed of concerned and engaged citizens. Some of us were already activists. Others are members of political parties. Others were in other organizations. Some are organizing and protesting for the first time. When the PetroChallenge came out on social media, we thought that the word had to spread further. So, we organized sit-ins. We [the PetroChallengers] organized historic protests: October 17, 2018 and November 18, 2018. We pressured the Court of Auditors to perform an audit of the PetroCaribe funds and waited for the first report. At that time, many PetroChallengers were worried about keeping the movement alive because it had no clear ideology. The first activity that we [NPD] organized was called Nou Pap Dòmi (We are not sleeping), where we spent three nights and two days in front of the Court of Auditors at the end of December [2018]. Solidarity built up after this activity, and we realized that we had more in common than we thought. We came together again to constitute ourselves as a collective.

It is really important to emphasize the collective’s plurality. Many young and less young people met and discovered they had the same vision for the country, even though their political ideologies were not the same. Some are leftists. Some are center left. Others are still searching. The collective allowed us to learn about Haitian citizens and to work in groups.

Nou Pap Dòmi has a flat organizational structure. That is why, within NDP, there is no spokesperson, general secretary, or director. We are all members of NDP on an equal basis. Many people can speak on behalf of the collective because it is important for us not to rely on a singular leadership.

We wanted to break the myth of the Messiah whereby a single rescuer will come to save Haiti. It is the society as a whole that must and will solve Haiti’s problems. This is the mentality that we try to apply in NDP, and we make our decisions by consensus, where we force ourselves to discuss things that we disagree on. Of course, because of this, it takes us more time to reach an agreement on what we decide to do, but it’s healthier.

This learning process was very important for us: collaborating with each other, exchanging ideas without getting mad, coming together for the common good. This is the kind of learning experience that the Haitian education system doesn’t afford. Rather, this system creates small individuals who keep their heads down, who take orders, who simply obey. Nou Pap Dòmi is a collective of rebels who dare to go against this system. We meet in a general assembly. We have many committees. We have structured ourselves. All this is done on a voluntary basis. The committees have decision-making power. But the final decisions are made by the general assembly.

Today, there is no life at all in Haiti. There is no welfare project. So we are fighting for life. So far, we have been operating with our own members’ funds, which makes our operation perhaps slower. We are also looking for different people interested in supporting our efforts. But we are cautious about who we take money from because money in Haiti is not always clean. Even if the person is not linked to any corruption scandal, they may be of questionable moral character.

At this stage, we must take more active political responsibility. We want to launch a political movement throughout the country that will allow us to mobilize a large electorate and recruit candidates the next time there is a legitimate and fair electoral process.

JB: It is not without reason that, lately, everyone is wondering where we are with our movement. Over the last three years, we have protested and have not reached our goal despite the various gains that our movement has brought. So, we had to ask ourselves some key questions: Are protests our best tool? We have to ask ourselves where the knot is and how to untie it. That’s the reason why we hesitate to organize protests. Every time we organize a protest, people die from our side. From January to August [2020], 944 people were murdered. As the vanguard, we have a responsibility to the people we call to protest in the streets. Therefore, we must organize innovative actions and find other creative alternatives. For example, we organized two sit-ins recently, but government forces violently repressed them. Instead of organizing another one and increasing the number of victims, we preferred to mobilize people on social media. And it has had the effect we expected.

VC: Our goal is to take power. Protesting, dragging people to the slaughterhouse, is not a strategy that will lead us to power. Organizing, building a political movement throughout the country, and mobilizing citizens at the grassroots level will lead us to power. We are in a democracy, and we understand that the profound change we are aspiring to requires a legitimate power sought through elections.

It’s clear that our current leaders don’t care about anything, even if the country is on fire and blood is spilling. If the goal is to take power, we have to stay alive. We must organize ourselves until we become a viable alternative in the eyes of the Haitian people. It is also necessary for us to remain coherent in this fight. We cannot associate ourselves with dubious and corrupt people who don’t share our political vision—a vision based on respect for life and human dignity.

NACLA: How do class dynamics come to bear within the collective?

JB: If we take Nou Pap Dòmi as an example, all its members are young professionals categorized as middle-class people. But if we look at the daily life struggles of the so-called “middle class,” you will see that their situation is as fragile and precarious as the rest of the population. They, too, are experiencing a crisis of perspective. They are often referred to as “the silent majority.” They have understood the need to engage in a struggle for another Haiti at a certain level.

This question of class representation is a significant challenge for our movement. In past political movements, demonstrators were often seen as dirty and aimless people. That’s why in 2004 they were called “chime,” people without perspective, people in need. This concept follows the Duvalierist logic, which accused anyone demonstrating in the streets of being manipulated by politicians. We can proudly say that the PetroCaribe Challenge broke this logic by bringing people from different social groups to the streets. It is not a mixture that has been easy to accept. Middle-class people are often accused of participating just to show off. The friction is evident in planning meetings and even during the protests.

But what is clear is that, whether you are a student, professional, entrepreneur, or [member of the] diaspora who decides to return to Haiti to live and invest, we all have the problems of Haiti in common. Insecurity, lack of clean water, lack of electricity, lack of infrastructure, lack of police presence, lack of hospitals, lack of public schools. Now we have to deal with kidnappings and the trivialization of life. Nobody is spared.

At the beginning of the movement, on social media, the PetroChallengers were mostly middle-class people. But on October 17 [2018], people from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, including La Saline, joined us to ask the question: Where is the PetroCaribe money? At that time, the different groups from different regions came together for the same goal.

One last thing to add is that the difference between the social groups also brought about different perspectives on the crisis and how it should be addressed. For example, the working-class activists and the unemployed refuse to engage in dialogue with the embassies and insist that we remain on the streets.

VC: What has also widened the gap is how society is organized. There are no spaces for socialization in the country. There are no public schools that bring together different children from different backgrounds. And we are witnessing acculturation, where more and more people from the so-called middle class and those with money don’t identify themselves as Haitians. They live in Haiti, but they don’t go to Haitian schools. They speak English. They live as if they are in transit and plan to go live elsewhere.

The biggest crisis in this country is a crisis of society, a problem of identity. And then there is general mistrust. The result of the struggles of 2004 is mistrust, where people say, “Ah yes, once they take power, they will only look out for their own interests.” So we are still facing the stigma left by [the networks that supported the 2004 coup against Aristide, such as] GNB and the 184 Group. Since many of these actors have not changed, the gap continues to widen. And today, we ask ourselves the question: Are the Haitian people, Haitianness, Haiti dying?

NACLA: How do gender dynamics come to bear on the collective?

VC: 50 percent of Nou Pap Dòmi are assertive women. We did not purposely seek this parity. It is by chance that very avant-garde women came to take their place. In NPD, the men are comfortable with their masculinity and do not deny our femininity. We are a collective in which men respect women and do not feel diminished when a woman steps forward or takes a decision. This is a real learning experience for the Haiti we want. We have feminist women, and we also have feminist men. We do not define our model of feminism as one that destroys anyone, regardless of their sex and gender. And furthermore, we are comfortable with everyone regardless of their sexual orientation. We force ourselves to educate and train ourselves to respect the person.

JB: This is one of the reasons I was attracted to Nou Pap Dòmi. It is not common to find a militant organization with women at the forefront. These are not women simply placed out front for show. It is their skills, their convictions that brought them. There are many men in Haitian society who take issue with that. This has caused some to develop hostile feelings towards the organization. A man who is likely a seasoned activist is not only threatened by a newcomer, but also by a woman with whom he has to deliberate as an equal. There are many new and different things we are living in today’s movement.

(Courtesy: NACLA Report on the Americas.)