My Experience Working with the UN, the OAS, IFES, IRI, USAID, and Other International Organizations on Haiti’S Elections, from 1987 to 2000 by Jean Paul Poirier
My Experience Working with the UN, the OAS, IFES, IRI, USAID, and other International Organizations on Haiti’s Elections, from 1987 to 2000 by Jean Paul Poirier Historical Context Haiti has the distinction for defeating the Napoleonic Armies1 and for being the first black republic.2 Although this was a historic undertaking, it led to many difficulties in the develop- ment of the burgeoning nation.3 That the war against France virtually destroyed the capital Port-au-Prince, as well as the infrastructure of the economy, which was mostly oriented in providing sugar and other agricultural goods to France, was a crippling consequence.4 The fact that most developed nations boycotted the new nation in its early stages5 also contributed to the slow development of the new republic. As Hauge stated, “A symbiotic relationship developed between the two most powerful groups in Haiti, the military and the merchant elites.” He further added, “By 1938 Haiti had transferred more than 30 million Francs to France.” The alliance between the military and the merchant elites was countered in 1957 by Dr. François Duvalier coming to power, and retained his power by creating his own personal armed militia, the feared Tonton Macoutes.6 This violent and brutal force assisted Duvalier in maintaining a reign of terror, depleting the country of many of its elites who took refuge in the U.S., Canada,7 and France. At Duvalier’s death in 1971,8 he was succeeded by his son Jean Claude, aged nineteen years old. As Wenche brought forth, “Jean Claude reestablished the traditional relationship between the state and Haiti’s elites and in doing this lost support of the old Duvalierists.” Although Haiti gained considerable economic support during Jean Claude’s tenure, he lost his grasp on power though a number of factors, including the development of popular and peasant organizations in the 1980s,9 It all came to a head when Pope Jean Paul II’s famous phrase “Il faut que sa change,”10 rocked Duvalier’s regime to its core.
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