Haiti was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. It was colonized by the Spanish and later on by the French, hence the French and Creole spoken in Haiti. Haiti became an independent country on January 1st, 1804, and the first black republic. In 1957, François Duvalier, a vicious dictator was elected President and had an army to back him up. He was a torturous leader killing many. His son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, took over after him. He too was a cruel dictator, who took 300-800 million US dollars from Haiti. During both their reigns, 20,000-60,000 people were killed in cold blood. In the 1970's and early 80's, there were catastrophic droughts and hurricanes, which brought Haiti in an even worse economical state. On March 1987, a new constitution was created but was later suspended by the military in June 1988. In 1990, there was a Presidential election and Father Aristide won. However, he was overthrown by the military only a few months after his rule, and on February 2004, Father Aristide was exiled. Since 2004, 8,000 peacekeepers have come to Haiti from the UN to try and maintain some civil order. Finally, in May 2006, there was a democratically elected president and parliament.
Political Unrest:
Background Information: On January first 1804 Haiti gained its independence and became the world’s first black republic. The history that followed in the Haitian society is filled with violence and political instability. The capital of Haiti is now Port-au-Prince.
François Duvalier: François Duvalier studied medicine at the University of Haiti and graduated in 1907. He later worked as a doctor and his patients started calling him “Papa Doc.” Duvalier developed an interest for the African roots of Haitian culture, so he helped with the finding of a group of writers committed to black nationalism and voodoo mysticism called, “Le Group des Griots” , in 1938. These people started saying that he was practicing voodoo sorcery. In 1946, he joined the government of President Dumarsais Estimé and became director general of the national public health service. In 1948 he was given the position as minister of public health and labour. In the same year, President Estime was overthrown in a military coup on May 10th and Duvalier was elected president almost 10 years later (1957), for a six year term on the 22nd of September. His promises to the people were to end the privileges of the mulatto elite and bring political and economic power to the black masses. Even so, the political issues were still unstable. A year later there was an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow him and so he took several steps to consolidate his position. After this he began his violent acts. First he organized the Tonton Macoute, a private militia that would be used to terrorize and murder all of his enemies and people who got "in his way". In 1963 his leadership became even more tremendous; he proclaimed himself as the “Haitian Flag” and stated that whoever is his enemy, is the enemy of the fatherland. Later, in 1964, he made himself president of Haiti for life and Haiti was now isolated for good. In 1971 Duvalier made his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, his successor and was known as “Baby Doc”, after his father’s nickname. François died on the 21st of April and his son took over immediately, while becoming the youngest president in the world at the age of 19.
Jean- Claude Duvalier: Jean-Claude Duvalier was born on the 3rd of July in Port-au-Prince and he was the son of François Duvalier. He became the president of Haiti after his father passed away, but he wasn't really interested in the same topics as his father was, so he left his mother and his father’s associates. He soon married and then fled away to France in order to avoid the mounting social unrest between riots in the country and ugly incidents going on nonstop all over Haiti. He left behind a broken and destroyed country. The years rolled by and in 2002 he decided to return to Haiti and stated that he wished to “rebuild” Haiti. The president at the time was Aristide and Duvalier asked him to retire and let him take over. In 2004, Aristide was forced out of office by an armed rebellion and Jean-Claude was in control again.
Timeline:
1492 - Christopher Columbus discovers Haiti
French colonization
Jan 1st, 1804 – Haiti Independence
1957 – François Duvalier gets elected President
1958 – François Duvalier organizes secret militia, Tonton Macoute
1964 – François Duvalier makes himself President for life
April 21st, 1971 – Jean-Claude Duvalier, François Duvalier’s son, takes over after his father dies
1990 – Father Aristide becomes President
February, 2004 – Father Aristide is exiled
Violence:
In Haiti violence is unfortunately people’s most favorite “hobby." There are many violent and unspeakable acts taking place in the Haitian society every day and no one can stop them or the criminals who have responsibility upon these acts. We chose to show you two out of the millions of violent “demonstrations” taking place; these are sexual violence against girls and slavery. Out of all we believe that these two are of the most important violent crimes and specifically slavery, since it is mentioned in our book that we're reading, "Taste of Salt."
Sexual Violence against Girls: A twenty-two year old woman shares her horrible story about how she was raped at the age of fifteen at the country’s famous Carnival Party. We know that most of the raping takes place every year at this Carnival where people are uncontrolled and where large amounts of women that get raped later suffer from AIDS. The woman describes that being raped makes you feel as though you’ve been shunned by society; you don’t have the right to get an education, you can’t go to a hospital, all you are expected to do is stay in a corner and have absolutely no rights. It’s as if you’ve been rejected from society. Every woman that has been raped has to be reminded that she was raped and it makes you feel as if you are being raped all over again. Every person that knows what you’ve been through expects you to know that you are nothing to this society anymore. You have no rights and you should stay silent in the world that you no longer belong to according to society. As you can see this is an everyday issue that takes place in the world of Haiti and it leads to other problems such as the disease of AIDS and HIV, pregnancy, and illegal abortions, that can cause the death of the mother not just the embryo. There is no one that can stop this but it can definitely be reduced.
Slavery: Slavery in Haiti is common but what is shocking is the children being taken as slaves with the same promise that has been broken before... that they will have a better future. Thousands of children are taken from their families, are being given away or even sold by their own parents. Instead of the children being given food and shelter and a proper job as promised, they are beaten up and whipped by their masters. They work under inhumane circumstances and get almost no food or rest and definitely no money. The children that are often just three years of age are forced to sleep on concrete floors and have absolutely no rights to refuse their master’s commands or leave from the area they’ve been taken to. Many are beaten to death and others probably wish they were dead. The character in our book also experiences what it was like working as a slave and we can tell how awful and what a big disgrace it was to the Haitian Society. This is the biggest act of violence and it reminds us of some sort of concentration camp that no one seems to have any intentions to stop.
Disturbing Pictures:
Man with gun threatening innocent civilians.
A murder or death just occured. Scared peopleare running away from the body.
Countless number of dead bodies prove there is unlimited violence and unrest in Haiti.
A young woman crying either because she has nowhere to go or, because she just lost a loved one.
A violent man with a mask and rocks in his hands, gets ready to do some serious damage.
Two mothers mourning their lost or missing children.
Two Haitian children talking to a UN peacekeeper behind a boundary line.
Disturbing Videos:
Violence in Haiti-1994
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpvcWG0wM78
Violence and Unrest in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jO_EcC0Www
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