Ajarai's List: Haitian Oppression Project AJ

• The tremendous poverty and vulnerability made starkly clear by this disaster is but a legacy of Haiti's long history of domination by powerful outside interests.
• irst French colony to win independence
• France and Great Britain, later joined by the U.S., imposed a punishing economic boycott against the new nation
• Haiti's burdensome debt obligation had turned what was once the richest colony in the world, into the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
• Haitian lawmakers balked at the arrangement, U.S. marines landed at Port-au-Prince, seized the half million dollars in the Haitian treasury and transported the funds to National City Bank of New York.
• marines continued in control
• In the decades that followed, a succession of dictators                   turned the army into a personal police force with the most notorious, "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son "Baby Doc," terrorizing their own population through paramilitary gangs known as tonton macoutes.
• Public services fell into disrepair, illiteracy reached 90 percent, and poverty and malnutrition grew rampant.
• Because the regime remained staunchly opposed to Cuba's Fidel Castro, however, it was rewarded with a steady flow of aid from the U.S.
• Haitian history changed. In the country's first free and fair elections, voters chose parish priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had worked many years in the slums                   of Port-au-Prince, to be their president. Upon taking office, Aristide promised to raise minimum wage, improve health care and education, and relieve misery in this country where one percent of the population owns half the wealth.
• He faced stiff and often violent opposition among Haiti's economic elites, however, who only ten months later backed the overthrow of their first legitimately elected leader
• returned to office with help from the Clinton Administration
• he was again ousted in 2004
• followed by a full revival of the debt-led model of trade and continued impoverishment of the majority

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• • 0:15 After the earthquake Haiti came to a halt. Prior to the earthquake, there were already immense poverty issues and problems with literacy and public services. After the Earthquake it was difficult to get back on track, but they couldn't get ALL the help they needed.
• • 0:36 The situation before the earthquake made everything even worse.
• • 1:15 After the earthquake Haiti lost 1/3rd of the public services (18,000 of them).
• • 1:59 The money Has been distributed, but they don't want to rebuild Haiti the way it was, because the situation was terrible the way it was before.
• • People are better off now, but they are being controlled. Our government is looking for land to build services for the public on. People don't want to return to their normal ways.
• • 0:14 For Haiti, time stopped. They no longer had the resources to provide services. Because they were in  a large debt, themselves they couldn't afford it, so they had to rely on government.

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• it wasn't meant to be.
• nearly 25 years after being ousted, observers are wondering if the former dictator is preparing for a second act
• Duvalier inherited the title of "president for life" in 1971 upon the death of his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who had ruled with an iron fist
• Haitians initially celebrated his ascension, thinking the young man would be less oppressive than his father
• Duvalier used his father's security apparatus to continue ruling in a totalitarian fashion.
• speculation that his father's cronies and security forces were in charge
• During the 15 years of "Baby Doc's" rule, "there was no political space whatsoever," he said. "He kept the place in complete repression." This included the torture of opponents and the taking of political prisoners
• "Baby Doc" embezzled at least $500 million from Haiti during his rule, citing Haitian government officials and lawyers, and American officials. She described a life of luxury that Duvalier lived in France after the protests that pushed him out of power, and how that money eventually ran out.
• "Baby Doc" arrives at a time of political and social crisis in Haiti. A scheduled runoff election for the president that was to take place Sunday was postponed because of a review by the Organization of American States that showed that one spot in the runoff was given to the wrong candidate
• "It does create a lot of problems for an extremely weak government that is trying to assess whether the election process should go on or not," Pastor said.

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• Francois Duvalier was elected president in Sept. 1957; in 1964 he was named president for life. Upon his death in 1971, he was succeeded by his son, Jean Claude. Drought in 1975-77 brought famine, and Hurricane Allen in 1980 destroyed most of the rice, bean, and coffee crops. Following several weeks of unrest, President Jean Claude Duvalier fled Haiti aboard a U.S. Air Force jet Feb. 7, 1986, ending the 28-year dictatorship by the Duvalier family.
• Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president Dec. 1990. In Sept. 1991, Aristide was arrested by the military and expelled from the country. Some 35,000 Haitian refugees were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard as they tried to enter the U.S., 1991-92. Most were returned to Haiti. There was a new upsurge of refugees starting in late 1993.
• The UN imposed a worldwide oil, arms, and financial embargo on Haiti June 23, 1993. The embargo was suspended when the military agreed to Aristide's return to power on Oct. 30, but the military effectively blocked his return. After renewed sanctions, the UN Security Council authorized, July 31, 1994, an invasion of Haiti by a multinational force. With U.S. troops already en route, an invasion was averted, Sept. 18, by a new agreement for military leaders to step down and Aristide to resume office. As part of the agreement, thousands of U.S. troops began arriving in Haiti, Sept. 19. Aristide returned to Haiti and was restored in office Oct. 15. A UN peacekeeping force exercised responsibility in Haiti from Mar. 31, 1995 to Nov. 30, 1997.

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• "house arrest"
• he isn't authorized to leave Port-au-Prince while under investigation for such crimes as torture, kidnapping and murder
• Judge Carves Jean warned he'll "be going straight to the national penitentiary" if he wanders again

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• Dubois' account implicitly searches out explanations for the country's chronic poverty
• Not dismissing one-man-rule's deleterious economic effects, Dubois ascribes a negative influence to repeated intrusions by foreign powers into Haitian affairs

• Haiti no longer has the Duvaliers, Duvalierism dominates Haiti.
• General Avril, like his predecessor General Namphy, one who worked himself up through the Duvalier system, but Duvalierist political terror  continues in Haiti
• eptember, 1988 Namphy engineered a Tonton Macoute attack on the church of St. John Bosco
• Francois Duvalier routinely had Catholic Churches attacked in the early 1960s during the phase of his consolidation of power in which he took on and defeated the  Catholic Church

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• He replaced the bicameral legislature   with a unicameral body and decreed presidential and legislative elections
• Despite a 1957 prohibition against presidential reelection, Duvalier ran   for office and won with an official tally of 1,320,748 votes to zero.   Not content with this sham display of democracy, he went on in 1964 to   declare himself president for life. For Duvalier, the move was a matter   of political tradition; seven heads of state before him had claimed the   same title.
• An ill-conceived   coup attempt in July 1958 spurred Duvalier to act on his conviction that   Haiti's independent military threatened the security of his presidency.   In December the president sacked the armed forces chief of staff and replaced   him with a more reliable officer. This action helped him to expand a Presidential   Palace army unit into the Presidential Guard. The Guard became the elite   corps of the Haitian army, and its sole purpose was to maintain Duvalier's   power. After having established his own power base within the military,   Duvalier dismissed the entire general staff and replaced aging Marinetrained   officers with younger men who owed their positions, and presumably their   loyalty, to Duvalier.
• blunted the power of the army through a rural militia formally named   the Volunteers for National Security (Volontaires de la Sécurité   Nationale--VSN), but more commonly referred to as the tonton makouts (derived   from the Creole term for a mythological bogeyman). In 1961, only two years   afterDuvalier had established the group, the tonton makouts had more than   twice the power of the army
• After Duvalier   had displaced the established military with his own security force, he   employed corruption and intimidation to create his own elite. Corruption--in   the form of government rake-offs of industries, bribery, extortion of   domestic businesses, and stolen government funds--enriched the dictator's   closest supporters. Most of these supporters held sufficient power to   enable them to intimidate the members of the old elite who were gradually   co-opted or eliminated (the luckier ones were allowed to emigrate).
• Kennedy administration registered   particular concern over allegations that Duvalier had blatantly misappropriated   aid money and that he intended to employ a Marine Corps mission to Haiti   not to train the regular army but to strengthen the tonton makouts
• Duvalier refused   to accept United States demands for strict accounting procedures as a   precondition of aid renewal. Duvalier, claiming to be motivated by nationalism,   renounced all aid from Washington
• At that time, aid from the United States   constituted a substantial portion of the Haitian national budget. The   move had little direct impact on the Haitian people because most of the   aid had been siphoned off by Duvalierist cronies anyway. Renouncing the   aid, however, allowed the incipient dictator to portray himself as a principled   and lonely opponent of domination by a great power
• Resistant   to both domestic and foreign challenges, Duvalier entrenched his rule   through terror (an estimated 30,000 Haitians were killed for political   reasons during his tenure), emigration (which removed the more activist   elements of the population along with thousands of purely economic migrants),   and limited patronage. At the time of his death in 1971, François   Duvalier designated his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, as Haiti's new leader

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• ean-Claude was a feckless, dissolute nineteen-year-old, who had   been raised in an extremely isolated environment and who had never expressed   any interest in politics or Haitian affairs. He initially resented the   dynastic arrangement that had made him Haiti's leader
• affai
• Jean-Claude   limited his interest in government to various fraudulent schemes and to   outright misappropriations of funds. Much of the Duvaliers' wealth, which   amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, came from   the Régie du Tabac (Tobacco Administration)
• Jean-Claude's   kleptocracy, along with his failure to back with actions his rhetoric   endorsing economic and public-health reform, left the regime vulnerable   to unanticipated crises that were exacerbated by endemic poverty, including   the African Swine Fever (ASF) epidemic and the widely publicized outbreak   of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the 1980s
• Already minimal, public services deteriorated   as Jean- Claude and his ruling clique continued to misappropriate funds   from the national treasury.
• Popular discontent intensified in response to increased   corruption among the Duvaliers and the Bennetts, as well as the repulsive   nature of the Bennetts' dealings, which included selling Haitian cadavers   to foreign medical schools and trafficking in narcotics. Increased political   repression added to the volatility of the situation. By the mid-1980s,   most Haitians felt hopeless, as economic conditions worsened and hunger   and malnutrition spread
• when Pope John Paul II visited Haiti.   The pontiff declared that "Something must change here." He went   on to call for a more equitable distribution of income, a more egalitarian   social structure, more concern among the elite for the well-being of the   masses, and increased popular participation in public life. This message   revitalized both laymen and clergy, and it contributed to increased popular   mobil
• A revolt   began in the provinces two years later. The city of Gonaïves was   the first to have street demonstrations and raids on food-distribution   warehouses. From October 1985 to January 1986, the protests spread to   six other cities, including Cap Haïtien. By the end of that month,   Haitians in the south had revolted. The most significant rioting there   broke out in Les Cayes.
• Jean-Claude   responded with a 10 percent cut in staple food prices, the closing of   independent radio stations, a cabinet reshuffle, and a crackdown by police   and army units, but these moves failed to dampen the momentumof the popular   uprising against the dynastic dictatorship.
• A plot to   remove him had been well under way, however, long before the demonstrations   began. The conspirators' efforts were not connected to the popular revolt,   but violence in the streets prompted Jean-Claude's opponents to act. The   leaders of the plot were Lieutenant General Henri Namphy and Colonel Williams   Regala. Both had privately expressed misgivings about the excesses of   the regime. They and other officers saw the armed forces as the single   remaining cohesive institution in the country. They viewed the army as   the only vehicle for an orderly transition from Duvalierism to another   form of government.
• Reagan administration began to pressure Duvalier to renounce his rule   and to leave Haiti. Representatives appointed by Jamaican prime minister   Edward Seaga served as intermediaries who carried out the negotiations.   The United States rejected a request to provide asylum for Duvalier, but   offered to assist with the dictator's departure. Duvalier had initially   accepted on January 30, 1986. The White House actually announced his departure   prematurely. At the last minute, however, Jean-Claude decided to remain   in Haiti. His decision provoked increased violence in the streets.
• The United   States Department of State announced a cutback in aid to Haiti on January   31. This action had both symbolic and real effect: it distanced Washington   from the Duvalier regime, and it denied the regime a significant source   of income. By this time, the rioting had spread to Port-au-Prince.
• After hastily naming a National Council   of Government (Conseil National de Gouvernement--CNG) made up of Namphy,   Regala, and three civilians, Jean-Claude and Michèle Duvalier departed   from Haiti on February 7, 1986. They left behind them a country economically   ravaged by their avarice, a country bereft of functional political institutions   and devoid of any tradition of peaceful self-rule
• most citizens expressed a desire   for democracy, they had no firm grasp of what the word meant or of how   it might be achieved.

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