Alex Dupuy - Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution

The Limits of the Democratic Revolution

Alex Dupuy

First published 1997 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dupuy, Alex.
Haiti in the new world order: the limits of the democratic revolution / Alex Dupuy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-8133-2113-1 (hardcover). ISBN 0-8133-2114-X (pbk.)
1. HaitiPolitics and government1986- 2. LiberalismHaitiHistory. 3. Social changeHaitiHistory. 4. HaitiRelationsUnited States. 5. United StatesRelationsHaiti. I. Title
F1928.2.D86 1996
320.97294dc20

96-36190
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00958-8 (hbk)

I would like to thank Anthony Catanese, Leslie Desmangles, Robert Fatton, Franck Laraque, and Gilbert Skillrnan for their valuable comments and suggestions on the chapters of this book. I am especially grateful to my wife, Wanda Dupuy, for thoroughly editing the manuscript. Thanks also to Westview Press Senior Production Editor Libby arstow and Copy Editor Joan W. Sherman.

Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from French and Haitian Creole are my own.

Alex Dupuy

Elected by a landslide in 1990 and taking office in February 1991 as Haiti's forty-fourth president, Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide would be overthrown seven months later by the military. That was the twenty-eighth coup detat since Haiti gained its independence in 1804 and the fifth since the emerging popular movement impelled the military to overthrow the hereditary Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. But if the overthrow of President Aristide was in keeping with tradition for the Haitian military and surprised no one, the reaction of the United States was unexpected and astounding. In a clear break with its Cold War behavior, Washington declared its opposition to the coup, demanded the reinstatement of the deposed president, and urged the Organization of American States (OAS) and later the United Nations (UN) to adopt a series of sanctionstrade, financial, arms, and travel embargoesagainst the military junta to compel the coup leaders to comply with the OAS and UN resolutions. When those measures failed to dislodge the putschists, U.S. President Bill Clinton, with prior UN Security Council approval, ordered U.S. troops into Haiti on September 19,1994three years after the coupto remove the putschists from power and reinstate President Aristide.