The History of Haiti

[goldcanyonaz]

Great website for information in regards to Haiti, including timelines of historic events, population, unemployment, religion,maps, breaking news, etc.

http://www.travelinghaiti.com/history.asp

[goldcanyonaz]

1. No one cares about Haitis' history?

[Bigmack]

2. Actually, we have a special relationship...

with Haiti. The Marines ran the country from 1915-1934.

We OWE them the best we can do.

[sofa king]

4. I do.

I've been interested in Haiti since the day I got to go into the cockpit of a Lockheed Electra as it meandered over Hispanola. It was the first and only time in my life that I could see an artificial national border from 30,000 feet.

Haiti was clay-brown and almost completely deforested, while the Dominican Republic side of the island remained pretty and green. The disparity is entirely due to the different land-use practices of the two countries, as described by Jared Diamond in his book, Collapse.

Unfortunately, the difference is a lot more noticeable in real life than it is in Google Earth, because Hispaniola's map is generated from dozens of different photos taken at different times, making the difference not so easy to see.

[smokey nj]

3. Thanks for posting this.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

5. What a sad history...

1992

" U.S. President George Bush exempts U.S. factories from the embargo and orders U.S. Coast Guard to interdict all Haitians leaving the island in boats and to return them to Haiti. The OAS embargo fails as goods continue to be smuggled through neighboring Dominican Republic."


This is unforgivable but not surprising.

[goldcanyonaz]

6. No one here seems to care

[Xenotime]

7. I think everyone is still in shock from the horror in the news.

[goldcanyonaz]

8. Of course, but wlll they care in the next coming months?

[struggle4progress]

9. Be cautious of summary histories like this. They frequently contain political views, that are

masked by a supposedly objective style. Consider, for example, the claim an uprising .. leads to the resignation of Aristide.

1980s ... Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest, preaches Liberation Theology in Haiti. US conservatives spread stories that he could be the next Castro ...
Early 1990s ... Haitian Guy Philippe is trained by US Special Forces in Ecuador ...
December 1990 ... Running against 11 other candidates, Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins the presidential elections in Haiti with a two-thirds majority. The election turnout is high and is later described as being “unquestionably the most honest Haiti has known” ...
October 31, 1991 ... In Haiti, the Front for the Advancement of Progress of the Haitian People (FRAPH) overthrows the government while Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is on a visit to the UN in New York ... The junta is responsible for the massacre of hundreds — or by some estimates, thousands — of dissidents ... The leader of the group is Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, who later acknowledges he had support from the CIA ...
(September 1994) ... FRAPH deputy leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain escapes to the Dominican Republic when the US military intervenes in Haiti to return Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power ...
(Late October 1994) ... The United States-led Multinational Force (MNF) searches the FRAPH office in Port-au-Prince and removes 60,000 pages of documents, mostly in French, which are given to the US ...
Early October 1995-October 1996 ... Haiti’s government and lawyers for Alerte Belance, a Haitian woman who was assaulted by FRAPH forces during the coup period .. seek the FRAPH documents .. from the US. But the US Defense Department refuses to provide them, saying the papers are classified and must first be reviewed before being released ...
May 21, 2000 ... After being postponed three times during the last seven months, Haitian parliamentary and local elections are finally held with a turnout of about 60 percent ... The Lavalas party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins the elections by a landslide ...
After May 21, 2000 ... Political groups opposed to the party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide form the Democratic Convergence, a coalition made up of roughly 200 groups ... The Convergence is a product of the USAID program, “Democracy Enhancement,” the purpose of which is to “fund those sectors of the Haitian political spectrum where opposition to the Aristide government could be encouraged.” Financial support for the Convergence comes from the International Republican Institute ...
October 18, 2000 ... The prime minister of Haiti says that Guy Philippe and others are planning to overthrow the Aristide government. Philippe and the other plotters flee across the Dominican border before they can be arrested ...
(2001-2004) ... The United States Government funds and trains a 600-member paramilitary army of anti-Aristide Haitians in the Dominican Republic with the authorization of the country’s president, Hipolito Mejia. The funds—totaling $1.2 milllion—are directed through the International Republican Institute (IRI) on the pretext of encouraging democracy in Haiti. In order to evade attention, the paramilitary soldiers appear at their training sessions dressed in the uniforms of the Dominican Republic national police ...
February 8, 2001 ... Stanley Lucas, the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) senior program officer for Haiti, tells an audience on Radio Tropicale that there are three ways to get rid of newly elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide: call early elections and vote him out, charge him with corruption and let the courts imprison him, or assassinate him ... The IRI, using $3 million in US taxpayer funds, will train and fund anti-Aristide candidates, help unite them into a single anti-Aristide bloc, and, according to a former US ambassador to Haiti, work to block all internationally-proposed power-sharing agreements in order to heighten Haiti’s political crisis ...
March 2002 ... A USAID-commissioned Gallup poll indicates that 61.6 percent of the survey’s participants sympathize or are members of Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party, while only 13 percent say they support the Democratic Convergence or any of its associated parties ...
October 2002 ... The US ships 20,000 M-16s to the Dominican Republic ...
May 6, 2003 ... Dominican police arrest five Haitians, including Arcelin Paul, the official Democratic Convergence representative in the Dominican Republic, who they believe are plotting the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government. Also at this time, there is a US build-up along the Dominican border ...
February 18, 2004 ... US Secretary of State Colin Powell states the US has “no enthusiasm” for sending troops to protect Haiti’s government from the approaching rebel forces ...
Late February 2004 ... Guy Philippe tells the Miami Herald during an interview conducted in Cap Haitein, Haiti, that the man he admires most is former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. “Pinochet made Chile what it is,” the 35-year-old rebel says ...
February 28, 2004-March 1, 2004 ... The details of this event are disputed. US version of events ... “He was not kidnapped. We did not force him on to the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly, and that’s the truth,” Secretary of State Colin Powell claims ... Aristide's version of events US soldiers arrive at Aristide’s residence and order the president not to use any phones and to come with them immediately. Aristide, his wife Mildred and his brother-in-law are taken at gunpoint to the airport. Aristide is warned by US diplomat Luis Moreno that if he does not leave Haiti, thousands of Haitians would likely die and rebel leader Guy Philippe would probably attack the palace and kill him ... Joseph Pierre's version of events - According to Joseph Pierre, a concierge at Aristide’s residence .. Aristide is taken away early Sunday morning by US soldiers. “White Americans came by helicopter to get him. They also took his bodyguards. It was around two o’clock in the morning. He didn’t want to leave. The American soldiers forced him to. Because they were pointing guns at him, he had to follow them" ... http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=the_2004_removal_of_jean-bertrand_aristide

[sabrina 1]

10. Thanks, history is already being rewritten it seems.

I was on a news blog when Aristede was ousted in a US backed Coup D'Etat and we blogged about Haiti for nearly two years after that.

The Bushes were friends with Haiti's former dictators, Papa and Baby Doc. They never did meet a dictator they did not love.

Aristede was one of Haiti's most popular leaders. He was ousted during Bush Sr.'s administration, re-instated by Clinton. Then ousted again under Bush the Lesser.

Aristede wanted to raise the standard of living of his people. He wanted to raise the minimum wage and the educational standards of Haitians. That was not acceptable to the Globalists who like to keep countries like Haiti in a state of poverty.

For a short while, the MSM here did cover the coup and a few members of Congress, like Maxine Waters tried to help get the story out that the Bush administration had violated an arms agreement by sending weapons into Haiti. She raised the issue again, along with Senator Dodd to try to stop the John Bolton nomination.

The country descended into violence and dire poverty after the ousting of Aristedes.

The conditions of that poor country, which under Aristede at least had a chance of beginning to turn itself around, are another Bush crime, one more to add to his legacy of criminal activity.