Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment

This book should be read by everyone in the US. We in the US don't realize what our policies have done to countries in Latin America. We helped depose the most beloved and popularly elected president in Haiti, Aristide. We and our NGOs have brought in cheap food which contributed to the decimation of the Haitian agricultural sector. Now people don't have jobs, they have US supported officials, no public education, a literacy rate of 50%, not much indoor plumbing or waste disposal. Very poor infrastructure, no trees, the land turns to mud when it rains. The mud flows into the ocean which kills the fish and coral reefs. It is an environmental and humanitarian disaster. And little missionaries go over and try to help but there is no coordination of their efforts and no follow through. Many of their projects fall apart after they leave. People tried to help like Clinton and Sean Penn but they didn't consult the local officials, they sometime did what benefited them and their friends rather than Haiti. Did they really need a brand new hotel when most of the country doesn't have running water? I will be going to Haiti soon and will report back after the trip.

No foreign policy issue is more distorted in the corporate media than Haiti, with the exception of Isreal/Palestine. Peter Hallward has written a marvelous book with a politically engaged perspective. His account of the years leading up to the U.S. kidnapping of Aristide in 2004 is an invaluable corrective to the demonization of Aristide and Lavalas. The story of Haiti, as told by Hallward, gives the reader insight into the lengths the U.S. government will go to repress popular movements that seek to redistribute wealth. Most Americans cannot comprehend the level of repression the U.S. can bring to bear on a small country like Haiti. For further evidence see the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks and published in The Nation magazine. This book receives the highest praise from Chomsky, Zizek, and Dr. Paul Farmer. You shouldn't need any further proof that is is a must read.

This is an important book for understanding the negative influences of international forces in Haiti, but the author's insistence on Aristide's position as an innocent victim and a leader of a unified opposition movement presents too simplified a picture of the current political situation in Haiti.

Vital information that pulls no punches. Closelyresearched and reasoned. With Paul Farmerand Jeb Sprague's books a veritble handbookfor understanding today's Haiti.

A lucid analysis. Well written!

This is the finest political study I've read in years. Hallward presents an impressively insightful and revelatory examination of Haiti's grassroots democracy movement (mid 1980s-present), plus an expose of the numerous malicious forces fighting to prevent democracy and human rights in Haiti (e.g. powerful Haitian wealthy sector, Duvalierist holdovers, and the US State Department). In thoroughly-documented detail, Hallward corrects the fallacious and slanderous reputation that has been heaped upon Jean Bertrand Aristide by his many self-interested opponents. Hallward argues convincingly that JBA was driven from power, not because he was corrupt (as some critics alleged, without providing evidence), but, rather, because JBA's efforts to improve the lives of the Haitian poor presented too great a threat to numerous established interests. Hallward makes a compelling case that JBA's so-called "voluntary resignation" in 2004 can be better understood as forced, blackmailed, via the threat of mass-violence by a band of thugs with ties to the Haitian elite and the US State Department. Hallward provides evidence that, contrary to popular perceptions, JBA's Lavalas party governed responsibly and with great respect for human rights, whereas their opponents were guilty of human rights abuses on a massive scale. Though Hallward's tone is measured and credible, the book has a great moral clarity and shows that the US has abetted in a large-scale violation of human rights in Haiti. I enthusiastically recommend this book for those interested in modern Haitian history, and/or grassroots democracy movements, US foreign policy and neo-colonialism.

I read a lot of books on Haiti, this is the best one I have seen on Haiti's history between 1990 and 2005. Well-written and researched, with strong analysis. It is important for anyone interested in understanding Haiti today, but it is equally important for understanding current U.S. foreign policy. The excellent explanation of how the U.S. undermined and overthrew Haiti's democracy in 2004 applies to similar U.S. efforts in Venezuela over the last 8 years, and current efforts to undermine democracy in Bolivia.

Great !

This is probably the best in-depth look at Haiti in the 20th and 21st centuries. It begins with a chapter on Haiti's history as a colony, the slave rebellions, the reconquest by France and the debt imposed on Haitians for daring to rebel, which was not finally paid off till 1947.Most of the chapters are on the period from 1991 till 2006 in which Aristide became the central figure in Haitian politics and a target for the French and US governments as a result of his involvement with masses of the poorest Haitians, working along with them to organise self-help groups and a political movement.Hallward does not hide the darker side of Aristide - his speeches on the usefulness of machetes or on letting the wealthiest 'have what they deserve' if they refuse to share their wealth, but points out the context - in which agents of dictators, military dictators and the US government massacred Aristide's parishioners with guns and machetes during church sermons - and in which political violence was reduced massively while Aristide was in power.Hallward lays bare the duplicity of the US and French governments (the latter through the EU) in painting Aristide as behind most political violence in Haiti while they have actually trained and armed most of the killers.The copiously sourced and well argued book shows how these governments managed an international propaganda campaign to discredit Aristide and paint him as a corrupt dictator when in fact he has consistently won the support of the majority of Haitians in free and fair elections and massively reduced political violence before the last US-organised military coup against him in 2004. One method has been for US officials to pay money to Haitian politicians to denounce Aristide, then get the Associated Press to report this, then have US-funded newspapers and radio stations quote AP as confirming Aristide's supposed guilt.Anyone who wants to understand Haitian politics and the way Haitians are now bound in a new form of slavery and slow starvation by the US and French governments should read this book. It is not a pleasant subject to read about, but with the number of lives lost as a result - and the number that could be saved by more public pressure on 'developed world' governments - it's an important one.

Hallward has created perhaps the most detailed analysis of the politics of Haiti from the 1990's onwards that is currently available. The descriptions of the various factions and political actors involved in this period of Haitian politics is impressive whilst at the same time, occasionally difficult to follow and digest. A mass of acronyms also does not assist the reader but Hallward does present a list of who these acronyms refer to and this is needed as one attempts to keep track of which particular organisation, faction or grouping he is referring to.Would have wished to have read a little more about Aristide the man and his background as preparation for the upheavals that he subsquently had to go through.For those wishing an in-depth analysis of Haitain politics during the last 25 years or so, it has to be recommended reading. Those looking for a quicker and easier read may need to look elsewhere.

An excellent comprehensive and critical examination of how Western governments (US, French, Canada) overthrew Jean Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas. It provides detailed research and very probing interview with Aristide as part of the Annex.