US Secretary of State Colin Powell paid a visit to Haiti yesterday, Monday April 5, in an attempt to legitimize the new regime and stop the spread of instability in the region caused by the coup that overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the end of February. His visit, if anything, has further inflamed the situation and will only lead to further instability.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide stepped down as President and left Haiti early in the morning on Sunday February 29. Shortly thereafter the US announced that it was sending in marines to help 'stabilize' the country and make way for a UN 'peacekeeping' force. The UN Security Council also decided that it will send a multi-national 'peacekeeping force' for at least three months as well as a 'stabilizing force' that it will send later in the year. These developments clearly demonstrate the reactionary role played by US imperialism in the region and far from solving the crisis in Haiti it is setting the stage for further unrest and instability in the whole area.

Former death squad and military leaders from the darkest periods of Haiti's past have been leading an armed struggle against the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide for the past two weeks. The paramilitary groups, formerly called the Cannibals, have taken over a dozen cities in northern Haiti and control several key supply routes. In response to the crisis, Aristide's government has asked for international assistance to prevent a coup.

Haiti celebrated the 200th anniversary of its independence on January 1, 2004. The history of Haiti is a long history of colonial struggle against imperialism and has recently been the scene of deep political and social unrest. It is not yet clear what the outcome of the situation in Haiti will be, what is clear however, is that the workers and peasants of Haiti can only rely on themselves to solve the problems they face.

It is nearly seven years since George Bush, the then president of the US, made his famous "New World Order" speech. This was in 1991. In the build-up to the Gulf War the main imperialist power on earth promised a world without wars, without dictatorships and, of course, a world firmly under the control of a single all- powerful world policeman--the US. After the fall of Stalinism, US imperialism really thought that the world would be firmly under their command and they would be able to dictate the destiny of each and every country. All conflicts in the world were to be solved through dialogue in a kind of "Pax Americana." Now all these dreams have been reduced to rubble. In this document Ted Grant and Alan Woods make an in-depth analysis of the history of the imperialist domination of the Third World and the way. Written in June 1998.