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A market vendor covers her face from garbage smoke in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, March 17, 2005. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
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INDEPTH: HAITI
Haiti: A country in turmoil
CBC News Online | May 15, 2006
Haiti is the western one-third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Christopher Columbus arrived there in 1492 and the island was the site of the first Spanish colony in the Americas. In the decades that followed, the indigenous population, called the Taino, was virtually wiped out by genocide and disease.
Haiti became a French colony in 1697. Nearly 100 years later, the black slave population started a revolution, leading a war with France. Haitian forces defeated the French soldiers sent by Napoleon in 1803, the same year France sold the Louisiana territory to the U.S. and all but gave up its colonial ambitions in the New World.
In 1804 Haiti became the first independent black-led republic in the modern world, and only the second independent state in the Americas. As it developed into a nation, it faced civil wars, political assassinations, territorial divisions and tyranny.
Jacques Dessalines, the leader of the Haitian army that defeated the French, declared himself emperor but was assassinated only two years into his reign. The country was divided by rival regimes in the north and south in the years that followed until the suicide of Haiti's self-proclaimed king Henri Christophe reunited the country in 1820.
For the next 100 years Haiti saw its share of friction between whites, blacks and mulatto populations, and saw 23 leaders come and go.
When a mob executed the Haitian leader in 1915, the U.S. military occupied the country and it remained under the control of the U.S. Marine Corps for 19 years.
In 1957, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a doctor and union leader was elected president. He terrorized the country, building a private militia and rooting out opponents. In 1964 he changed the constitution, making himself president for life.
When Duvalier died in 1971, his son, "Baby Doc," took over the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
In 1986, a revolt known as Operation Deschoukay forced Baby Doc out of the country and for six years several military governments ruled.
In December 1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest, was elected president based on a radical agenda of social and political change.
Aristide was ousted from power months later by a military coup and, in an attempt to restore democracy and order, the U.S. sent 20,000 soldiers over in 1994.
Professor Yasmine Shamsie, a research associate with the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at Toronto's York University said that the fact it took the U.S., one of the largest military powers in the world, three years to get rid of a weak military government, indicates it was in no hurry to bring back Aristide to Haiti.
"There was no political will for the U.S. to get rid of a ragtag group of guys holding a flag", she adds.
Aristide did return in 1994 but couldn't run for president again because the constitution forbids consecutive terms. René Préval became Haiti's elected president in 1995. Aristide won re-election in 2000.
He returned to Haiti with a new mainstream agenda that did not sit well with his past supporters who said he had backtracked on many of his previous promises. Aristide built a new base of political support by forming the Lavalas Family Party.
The years leading up to the 2000 election saw opposition to Aristide grow among well-known members of Haiti's intelligentsia and business community, as well as among dissatisfied lefties.
Physical attacks by Aristide supporters against his opponents became more widespread across Haiti, and the human rights violations attracted the attention of the international community, which decided in 2000 to withhold $500 million US in development money, said Shamsie.
In January 2004, on the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence from France, the opposition called for Aristide's resignation, accusing him of corruption. Violent protests erupted on the streets and rebel forces began to take over parts of the country.
Aristide asked for international help, but the United States and France eventually convinced him to resign. He settled in South Africa, but insisted he was still Haiti's legitimate leader. He promised to return one day.
In June 2004, the United Nations established a peacekeeping mission to try to stop the violence and bring some measure of security to Haiti. The UN force is made up of almost 9,000 soldiers and police officers from 41 countries. Canada's contribution amounts to 125 active and retired RCMP officers.
The UN mission is a dangerous one. As of February 2006, 17 UN peacekeepers, including one Canadian, have been killed in Haiti.
In February 2006, Haiti held its first presidential elections in six years. Nine days after the votes were cast, René Préval, president from 1996 to 2001, was declared the winner.
The election was marred by fraud, however, as boxes of marked ballots were found smouldering in a garbage dump and an usually large number of blank ballots were cast. Brazil brokered a deal in which the blank ballots were not counted, which gave Préval 51 per cent of the vote, enough to win without going to a run-off election.
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