In this episode, I’m joined by Erica Caines, Coordinating Committee member of the Black Alliance for Peace and Co-Coordinator of BAP’s Haiti/Americas team, to discuss the history of imperialism and anticolonial resistance in Haiti. We explore Haiti’s historical position as the world’s first Black republic, and the imperialist onslaught that has continued unabated against the country from the moment it first won independence from France in 1804. Delving into the complexities of the current crisis in Haiti, we examine how Haiti has come to function as a key laboratory for imperialist violence and aggression in the Americas.

Return to Bandung is hosted by Pranay Somayajula, an Indian-American writer, researcher, and organizer based in Washington, D.C. His work explores themes of diaspora, (inter)nationalism, anticolonial politics, and the many lives and afterlives of empire. You can learn more about Pranay and read his writing on his website, as well as on his Substack blog, culture shock.

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Sources and helpful links:

• Black Alliance for Peace — Zone of Peace campaign

• Black Alliance for Peace — Haiti resources

• Black Alliance for Peace — Haiti and Colonialism

• Black Alliance for Peace — CARICOM and Haiti: Integration or Imperialism

• Black Alliance for Peace — Fact Sheet on the Core Group

• Black Alliance for Peace — BAP Backgrounder: Haiti Behind the Headlines (March 2024)

• Erica Caines and Austin Cole — The Unspoken Colonial Contradiction of Haiti (Hood Communist, October 2023)

• The New York Times — Haiti ‘Ransom’ Project

• Jake Johnston — How US “Foreign Aid” Has Helped Destabilize Haiti (Jacobin, March 2024)

• Samar Al-Bulushi — The US Plan to Outsource Its Imperialism in Haiti to Kenya (Jacobin, May 2024)

• Jemima Pierre — Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory (NACLA Report on the Americas, September 2023)

• Nato Koury — Guantánamo Bay’s forgotten history of detaining Haitian migrants (Liberation News, February 2025)

Social links:

Return to Bandung:

• Twitter: ⁠twitter.com/returntobandung⁠

• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/returntobandung/⁠

Pranay Somayajula:

• Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/p_somayajula⁠

• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/pranay.somayajula/⁠

• Website: ⁠https://www.pranaysomayajula.com/⁠

• Substack: ⁠https://www.culture-shock.xyz/⁠

Black Alliance for Peace:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Blacks4Peace

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackallianceforpeace/

• Website: https://www.blackallianceforpeace.com/