Haiti: Creating and maintaining a ‘failed’ state

Abstract

In a remarkable prophecy, leading figures in the Haitian opposition told the Washington Post at the time of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s inauguration in Haiti in early 2001 that either there should be another U.S. invasion, or: ‘the CIA should train and equip Haïtian officers exiled in the neighbouring Dominican Republic so they could stage a comeback themselves.’1 In subsequent years, what was portrayed in the mainstream press as a human rights crisis in Haïti, has in fact been a ‘low-level war’ between elements of the former armed forces and the elected government which disbanded them,2 involving the Haïtian elite, the opposition Democratic Convergence and the Group of 184, and the international community, primarily the U.S.