By: Jeb Sprague - North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)

Four years after the second ouster
of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s
first democratically elected president,
three books exploring the 2004
coup have appeared, ranging widely
in their interpretations of events.
Aristide rose to power in 1991 with
a popular movement called Lavalas
(the Flood), formed after the collapse
of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s dictatorship
in the late 1980s. As president,
Aristide worked closely with Lavalas,
instituting programs to promote literacy,
improve health care, and include
the country’s poor in national
politics. But after eight months in office,
Haiti’s military overthrew him.
A military junta ruled until 1994,
when the Clinton administration intervened.
Unable to ignore Aristide’s
legitimacy, globalizing elites—from
the United States and elsewhere—
worked to manage a political transitiontransition
from a military to a civilian government,
a transition in line with the
neoliberal doctrines of the day.

Once returned to office, Aristide
was able to serve out only his short
remaining time. Although he was
forced to drop the state tariffs that
offered some protection for Haitian
agriculture, he was able to disband
Haiti’s military and refuse the privatization
program pressed upon his administration
by international financial
institutions. Soon out of office, Aristide
returned to office in 2000 after a
successful presidential campaign, this
time with a more militant and grassroots
movement called Fanmi Lavalas
(Lavalas Family). The movement,
which promoted the political mobilization
of Haiti’s urban and rural poor,
became the bane of much of the country’s
elite and middle class. Many of
the professionals and elites who had
once seen Aristide and the original Lavalas
movement as a vehicle for their
own political longevity now saw in its
new incarnation a class threat to be
opposed at all costs. In Aristide’s second
term, his Fanmi Lavalas government
clashed with both national and
transnational elites seeking to regain
power over the Haitian state. He was
finally overthrown again, in February
2004, but in a much more complex
and covert manner.

This book review was published in the November-December 2008 issue of NACLA. Read the entire PDF.