Review: Haiti's Predatory Republic
| Author | Roy Thomas |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070200305800317 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
contribution
to
our
understanding
of
how
two
communities with
much
in
common
have
endeavoured
to
overcome
the
powerful
forces
keeping
them
apart.
John
Hilliker/Ottawa
HAITI'S
PREDATORY REPUBLIC
The
Unending
Transition
to
Democracy
Robert Fatton
Jr.
Boulder:
Lynne
Rienner,
2002,
256
pp,
us$55.00
cloth,
ISBN
1-58826-060-7,
US$19.95
paper,
ISBN
1-58826-085-2
T
he
evidence
of
the involvement
of
the
Canadian
Forces
in
Haiti
since
the
fall
of
Jean-Claude
Duvalier
in
1986,
reads like
a
reli-
gious
litany,
with
the
following
Operations:
Bandit, Heritage,
Forward
Action,
Pivot, Cadence,
Standard,
Stable,
Faucon,
Constable,
Complement,
and
Humble. The
list
does
not,
however,
include
the
Department
of
National
Defence's
plans
that
never
reached
the
imple-
mentation
stage.
It
also
does
not
include
the
non-defence
contin-
gents-Canadian
police,
human
rights workers
and
electoral
moni-
tors-nor
the infusion
of
Canadian
assistance
through
relief
and
devel-
opment
programs.
Canada,
for
better
or
worse, has
been
a
player
in
Haiti
since
Baby
Doc's
departure and, although
any
analysis
of
Haitian
politics
since
1986
cannot
entirely
avoid
the
footprint
of
foreigners,
those
looking
for
an
analysis
of
what Canadian intervention
has
meant
to
Haitians
will
not
find
it
in
Robert
Fatton's
book.
Fatton
is
an
American
professor
"born
into
the
Haitian
elite,"
who
has
"deep
personal
ties
of
affection to"
the
people
of
Haiti.
His
study
of
the
impact
of
regime change
on
the
process
of
democratization
could
not
have
come at
a
more
fortuitous
time,
as
the
international commu-
nity
struggles
to
create
more
democratic
societies
in
Afghanistan
and
Iraq.
It
also
does
not
make for
happy
reading.
His
conclusions
on
Haiti's
progress
can
be
found
in
his
preface:
"The
hopes
that
the
events
of
February
1986
and
February
1991
engendered
have
become
so
faint
that
intellectual
honesty
requires
an
acknowledgement
of
defeat."
For
Fatton,
the
mass
movement
that
led to
Duvalier's
exit
from
power
was
an
anomaly;
normally, the
daily
grind
of
carving
out
an
exis-
tence
takes
most
of
the
population
out
of
the
political
arena.
Also,
the
dominance
of
the
"Possessing Class"
in
Haiti
makes
transformation
of
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer2003
467
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