Haiti under military rule (Feb 1986–Dec 1990)
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- The Post-Duvalier Period
- U.S. Library of Congress, Country Studies, December
1989. Jean-Claude Duvalier left behind a hastily
constructed interim junta, controlled by the armed
forces. The Council of Government (CNG) the VSN, but it
avoided the politically difficult measure of effectively
halting the VSN's activities. This nonfeasance
prompted angry mobs to murder known members of the VSN and
set in motion a cycle of instability from which Haiti had
yet to recover.
- Former head of Haitian Communist Party dead
in Miami at age 62
- By Michael Norton, Associated Press, 1 June
2003. Obituary of Rene Theodore. He was forced into exile
in 1967 by Duvalier and returned in 1986 when a popular
uprising ousted Duvalier fils. He founded a new party, the
Movement for National Reconstruction, but lost support
when he unsuccessfully opposed Aristide for the presidency
in December 1990. He was associated with the opposition to
Aristide since 2000.
- Search for the Authors of the Massacre in
Jean Rabel
- Haiti: Update, 13 September
1995. Warrants for the detention of the accused
participants in the massacre of July 23, 1987, in the
region of Jean Rabel. The bloody attack, led by Tonton
Macoutes at the service of a few large landowners, ended
in the assassination of an estimated 250 peasants with
another 700 wounded. It was the climax in a long
persecution of the members of Tet Kole, a peasant
association, who were demanding land which had been
expropriated by the local wealthy families.
- Jean Rabel Massacre commemorated with outcry
and excuses
- In Haiti Progres,
This Week in
Haiti,
29 July–4 August 1998. The massacre of July 23,
1987 in the northwestern town of Jean Rabel, where armed
gangs in the pay of big landowners attacked small peasants
demonstrating for land redistribution in the region. Some
139 peasants were killed and many more wounded. The
Duvaliers and then US occupation aimed at stability and so
perspetuated social ills.
- Though Duvalier is Gone, Haiti Still Needs
Help
- By Mark Danner, Institute of International Studies, UC
Berkeley, The New York Times, 19 May
1986. Three months have passed since the former President,
Jean-Claude Duvalier flew off into exile and, clearly,
building the
new Haiti
will be a slow and painful
process. Mr. Duvalier bequeathed his country a weak
interim Government headed by the former Army chief of
staff, Gen. Henri Namphy, which has spent the past three
months struggling to wrest the political initiative from a
newly vocal opposition.
- Just past ten on a sunny morning last month
in Port-au-Prince...
- By Mark Danner, The New Yorker, 16 July
1990. The fate of the post-Duvalierist opposition that
took root since Duvalier's departure in 1986. Now
Haiti is on its fifth government. After the 1987 massacre,
the U.S. stopped funding the government, and the military
put together another election, and Leslie F. Manigat
became President for four months, until General Namphy
deposed him. Namphy lasted three months before being
deposed by another general, Prosper Avril, who managed to
reign for eighteen months, with increasing brutality,
before a popular uprising forced him to flee the country
in March 1990.
- Former Haitian leader in legal tug of
war
- By Marika Lynch mlynch@herald.com, Herald,
[Wednesday 4 December
2002]. Prosper Avril, former Haitian president through a
1988 coup, accused torturer and one-time Miami mamey farmer,
sits in the National Penitentiary contemplating his
future. A confidant and financial advisor to the former
ruling Duvalier family and a member of the presidential
guard, Avril had an 18-month reign over Haiti.
- The Point is the U.S. is Prosper
Avril' accomplice!
- Discussion from the Haiti list, 31 August
2003. Protection of Avril was the aim of the
U.S. government.
- ‘Before realizing our hopes, it may
be very costly for Haiti’
- By Alva James-Johnson, South Florida
Sun-Sentinel, 3 January 2004. An interview with
former Haitian President Leslie Manigat. Manigat, a
political science scholar educated in France, is regarded
by many Haitian intellectuals as one of the
country's most educated and progressive
presidents. But he has failed to capture the popular
support of the masses.