For years, Haiti has been a country in turmoil. This is due to the country’s extreme levels of poverty and corrupt, unstable government. For nearly 30 years, the country was ruled by a family of dictators, the Duvaliers, who ruled with force and terror. François Duvalier, like most dictators, revised the constitution to solidify his power and replaced the army with a more powerful militia known as the Tonton Macoutes, which is creole for boogeymen. The Tonton Macoutes were responsible for many human rights violations, like murdering innocent men, women, and children. However, many Haitians rejoiced in 1991 when the country elected its first democratic president, Jean- Bertrand Aristide. This election signaled a new, promising era for the citizens of Haiti. He attempted to rebuild Haiti by back taxing the country’s elite and punishing the former generals who were responsible for crimes against citizens of Haiti. Aristide also disbanded the Haitian military to rid the country of the corrupt thugs and restore justice. This is believed to be the roots of the 2004 conflict. Many of the former militia members fled to the neighboring Dominican Republic to avoid punishment, where they organized attacks.
Rebel groups were responsible for fighting and attacking government institutions throughout the ‘90s and early 2000’s. But, in 2002, the government finally began arresting and convicting former militia members. One key leader, Jean Pierre Baptiste was convicted of "voluntary, premeditated homicide". But, he was freed from prison, along with 160 other inmates, by a heavily armed gang known as the Cannibal Army. The Cannibal Army later became known as the Gonaïves Resistance Front. After mounting international pressu...
... middle of paper ...
... This is why rebels in the years before the conflict were able to avoid capture.
Works Cited
"Disarm or Die." Haiti Democracy Project. Haiti Democracy Project, 10 08 2010. Web. 1 Apr 2012. .
"Haiti: Information on the Armed Revolt." UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency. United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, 30 03 2012. Web. 30 March 2012. .
"MINUSTAH: United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti." United nations. United Nations, n.d. Web. 30 March 2012.
Muggah, Robert. "Great expectations: (dis)integrated DDR in Sudan and Haiti." Humanitarian Exchange Magazine. 03 2007: n. page. Print. .
Weston, G. & Aubry, J. (1990, Feb 10). THE MARC LEPINE STORY; the making of a massacre series: THE MARC LEPINE STORY; Part 1. The Gazette. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/docview/431920094?accountid=13800
The Nation of Haiti has been plagued with excessive bad luck when it comes to external invasion. Whether it be larger countries taking control, or outsiders brought in as slaves, Haiti has endured many hardships. These issues, while very common in a lot of countries, are exposed in a short story by a native Haitian. In “A Wall of Fire Rising”, Edwidge Danticat illustrates a myriad of historical issues in Haiti from the 17th to the 20th century through a series of events in one family’s life.
In 1970, Trudeau was tremendously criticized for the implementation of the WMA, however, his verdict was correct due to the fright and ambiguity that looms over the FLQ. The FLQ was a sovereigntist “revolutionary movement” that arose in 1963 and were willing to use violence to end English colonialism is Quebec. They started their violence by placing bombs in federal armouries and the neighbourhoods of wealthy Anglophones. Nevertheless, their violence did not stop but, it rose drastically. In 1968, the movement set large bombs at “a federal government bookstore, at McGill University, at the residence of Jean Drapeau and the provincial Department of Labour”. On February 1969, the group wounded 27 people through a bomb placed at the Montreal Stock Exchange. Committing over 200 bombings in 7 years as the group split into 2 cells; Chenier and Liberation cell. In the fall of 1970, the Liberation cell kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross, and 5 days later the Chenier cell kidnapped the ...
The Search for Freedom in Haiti There is no hope for true freedom for the Haitian people as their society exists today. Haiti came to national attention in the 1990s, primarily for the suffering of its people. However, news clips do not tell a complete story. As a result, an author by the name of Edwidge Danticat set out to document life in Haiti through a collection of short stories, capturing the breadth of experience of the Haitian people as they survive under an oppressive regime. Krik?
Haiti began as the French colony Saint-Domingue. The island was filled with plantations and slaves to work on them. Almost a decade and a half after its settlement, this colony paved the way for many changes throughout the French empire and many other slave nations. Through its difficult struggle, we examine whether the slave revolt of Saint-Domingue that began in the late 16th century was justifiable and whether its result of creating the free nation of Haiti was a success.
Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse-tung, “Che” Guevara, Osama bin Laden and others have professed unique qualifications as innovators and practitioners of Guerrilla warfare. However, in our relatively short military history, we have periodically had to use or defend against irregular warfare. During the French and Indian Wars as well as the Revolutionary War, we were the guerrillas. In the Civil War, there were the partisan operations of Mosby, Forrest and the outlaw Quantrill, who played a key role in the Confederacy’s ability to wage effective war against the numerically and industrially superior Union for over four years. It is often forgotten, that regular forces require a ratio of ten to one to prevail against a partisan operating on their native soil3. Nevertheless, one thing remains constant: the adaptability and courage of the American Soldier under the harshest of circumstances continues to allow them to prevail.
The unification under Boyer lasted for twenty-two years. The Dominicans regained their independence from the Haitians in 1844. The political unrest in both countries between the time of their independences and the United States occupation of the nations of 1915 and 1916 was staggering. “Haiti had 33 heads of state, with an average time in power of 3.4 years. Meanwhile, between independence in 1844 and the U.S. military occupation in 1916, the Dominican Republic had 61 heads of state, with an average time in power of only 1.2 years” (Jaramillo & Sancak). The political landscape on both sides of the island were identical. There was no foreign interest on the Haitian side of the island from the period of their independence to the American intervention. Due to a chaotic political landscape and with Haiti’s policy of no foreign landowners allowed there was no hope for the previous Caribbean powerhouse to take its place on the throne of sugar
To introduce the conflict of this story, Danticat recounts the public execution of two rebels, Numa and Drouin, by the Haitian government. In doing so,
The government changed its tactics to end the rebellion, resorting to low intensity war. Paramilitaries with differing levels of tacit and explicit support terrorized Zapatistas and their sympathizers. The killings in Acteal in 1997 that claimed the lives of 45 innocent people remains a particularly gruesome example of paramilitary massacres.
Buss, Terry F., and Adam Gardner. Haiti in the Balance: Why Foreign Aid Has Failed and What
In 1915, the United States began its often forgotten nineteen-year long occupation of Haiti. Justified by the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, the proposition that established the United States as a self-proclaimed international police power, the occupation was framed by the American government as a “progressive intervention” meant to benefit the Haitian people. Haitians, however, despised the occupation as it deprived them of the autonomy they struggled to obtain from their French colonizers, and subjected them to Jim Crow racial values that considered all dark-skinned Haitians as inferior beings. In reality, despite the American government’s claims of wanting to help the Haitians, it willfully ignored the Haitians’ needs and demands simply to
The Front de libération du Québec was founded in 1963 during the “Quiet Revolution”, and for seven years, they carried out several minor bombings, with few FLQ members involved in each of the bombings, as they were relatively small scale. However, the Canadian government took little notice of these actions until Oct...
The effects caused by earthquakes are devastating. They cause loss of human life and have effects on infrastructure and economy. Earthquakes can happen at any time anywhere. In January 12, 2010 an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.0 hit the nation of Haiti. An estimation of 316,000 people were killed, and more than 1.3 million Haitians were left homeless (Earthquake Information for 2010). Haiti was in a terrified chaos. After the earthquake, families were separated because many of the members were killed. Homes, schools, and hospitals were demolished. People lost their most valuable belongings. It will take time for the country to recover from this terrible disaster. The long damages are economic issues, health-state, and environmental issues that effect in the beautiful island of Haiti.
During the 20th century, there were many outlaws and crimes that made history and left their mark on society. The murder of Quebec prison guard Dianne Lavigne , in Montreal, by Hells Angels members Stephane “Godass” Gagne and Andre “Touts” Tousignant under the orders of Maurice “Mom” Boucher was one of these exact instances. Based on the Hells Angels attempt to destabilize the justice system, her assassination and that of Pierre Rondeau not long after were committed in 1997. As will become evident, the murder of Dianne Lavigne resulted in the incarceration of those who were responsible, the police repression of biker activity, and the revulsion of the public while generating fear within the judicial system.
To fully understand how Debray was able to modify Guevara’s theory of guerrilla war, one must understand the history of guerrilla war and how it has changed overtime. Ganor believes that Guerrillas attack military and security forces as well as political leadership. However, do not be confused with terrorist groups, they attack civilians in order send a symbolic message (pg 6). Although Eric Reitan would argue that Guerrila style attacks could be considered terroristic because security forces, and political leaders are a target group, therefore, can be classified as a terroristic approach to accomplish an end result (pg 6). During the Napoleonic Wars, Spanish armies would utilize the guerrilla approach by murdering “off-duty soldiers, attack