Since I mentioned the return of Baby Doc below, I think it meet and proper to look at Haiti's sad history, and why cynicism survives longer than anything else there:
1791 - Haitian Revolution Breaks out with slave revolt. Civil War combined with war against French Colonial government, and a British invasion ensues.
1801 - Toussaint L'Ouverture conquers the island, emancipates the slaves, conquers the Spanish half of the Island, and does NOT declare full independence from France.
1802 - Napoleon sends General LeClerc to Conquer Haiti, which he does with 40,000 troops and aid from the whites and mulattoes. He then makes clear his intention to restore slavery. Revolt breaks out again, and the French are mauled the following year.
1804 - General Dessalines, Toussaint's successor, declares Haiti an independent republic. He waits less than a month to declare himself Emperor Jacques I.
1806 - Generals Henri Cristophe and Alexandre Petion assassinate the Emperor Jacques and divide the country between them. Cristophe declares himself King Henri I and rules the north like a feudal kingdom. Petion establishes a liberal state of smallholders with low taxes, but spends most of his revenue on the army to keep Cristophe from invading.
1816 - Petion dissolves the legislature and declares himself President for Life. He promptly dies of yellow fever and is replaced by Jean Pierre Boyer, his designated successor.
1820 - King Henri eats a silver bullet to avoid a coup d'etat. Boyer unites the country under his own Presidency for Life.
1822 - Boyer seizes the Spanish half of the island again, and divides it up amongst his generals to maintain their support.
1826 - To buy diplomatic revolution from France, Boyer attempts to put the smallholders to forced labor to grow sugar for export. This works about as well as expected. Sugar exports all but cease by 1840.
1843 - Charles Riviere-Herard overthrows Boyer, attempts another liberal parliamentary government.
1844 - Santo Domingo, the old Spanish half, rebels and proclaims itself the Dominican Republic. Herard attempts to stop this, and fails. Revolt breaks out against him and Herard sought exile in Jamaica. Phillippe Guerrier is chosen by the mulatto aristocracy to succeed him.
1845 - Guerrier dies, and the powers-that-be choose Jean-Louis Pierrot.
1846 - Pierrot attempts reforms, and the army removes him from power in a coup. He is replaced by Jean-Baptiste Riche.
1847 - Riche attempts reforms, and dies rather suddenly, possibly of poison. Faustin Soulouque is chosen to replace him.
1849 - Soulouque decides to get the jump on his Boyerist backers and cleans house. He declares himself Emperor Faustin I and creates an all new noble class of Princes, Dukes, Counts, Barons, etc. He rules the country with an iron fist, invades the Dominican Republic several times, and very nearly starts a war with the United States over a guano island.
1858 - Faustin is overthrown by one of his dukes, Fabre Geffrard, who re-establishes a Republic, complete with legislature.
1862 - Gefrard tires of the legislature and gets rid of it. He gives himself a raise, 2 plantations, and the use of army and hospital funds.
1867 - Sylvain Salnave overthrows Geffrard, who flees to Jamaica. Civil War ensues.
1869 - Nissage Saget overthrows Salnave. A new Constitution is attempted.
1874 - Saget steps down, or is thrown out, or something, and Michel Domingue is elected, or seizes power, or something. Another constitution is put together, and this one seems to work.
1876 - Under the new Constitution, Domingue transfers power to Lysius Salomon. A period of relative peace, semi-democracy, and almost prosperity ensues. Haitian culture and industry thrive a bit.
1888 - President Salomon abdicates and flees to Paris.
1889 – Florvil Hyppolite is installed by Constitutional Council.
1896 – Hyppolite dies and is replaced by Tereisias Sam.
1902 – Sam abdicates after a revolt led by Pierre Alexis and Antenor Firmin. The former secures the presidency with American support.
1908 – At the end of his constitutional six-year term, Alexis declares himself President-for-life. Revolt against him puts Antoine Simon into the Presidency, and Alexis to exile in Jamaica.
1911 – Simon is thrown out of the Presidency. Several more would-be presidents pop-up and fall like so many dominoes.
1915 – Vilbrun Sam, son of Tiresias Sam, seizes the Presidency and begins to take steps to prevent his own overthrow, culminating in the execution of 167 political prisoners in July. This not being cricket in the coup-and-counter-coup of Haitian politics, the population of Port-au-Prince rose up en masse. Sam attempted to hide in the French Embassy, but the rebels rushed, found him in a toilet, beat him half to death, and flung him to the waiting mob, which finished the job and tore him to pieces.
Noted classical liberal and arch-anti-imperialist Woodrow Wilson sends in U.S. Marines to sieze Port-au-Prince, and Haiti becomes a U.S. Protectorate. An extensive modernization is brought about, which more or less fails to make Haiti a prosperous nation.
1929 – Herbert Hoover sends to commissions to investigate Haiti. These commissions criticize several aspects of U.S. rule.
1930 – Stenio Vincent, a well-known occupation critic, is elected President of Haiti. Withdraw of American forces begins.
1934 – U.S. Occupation ends under Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy.”
1941 – Vincent hands over power to Elie Lescot. He declares war on the Axis, suspends the Constitution, and assumes “emergency powers”.
1946 – Military coup d’etat overthrows Lescot. Power is given to Dumarsais Estime, a black, who introduces reforms to labor and social policy, and expands civil and political liberties for blacks.
1950 – Estime attempts to reform the law that forbade his reelection. A military coup puts General Paul Magoire in power. Magoire establishes a dictatorship.
1956 – A general strike forces Magoire’s abdication. Unrest follows for a year, until new elections are held.
1957 – Francois Duvalier, former Minister of Health and considered a humanitarian, is elected President. Duvalier establishes another dictatorship, this time designed to end the domination of mulattoes over blacks forever. The President’s paramilitary police, the VSN, murder over 30,000 Haitians over the course of his regime. He is revered as “Papa Doc” by the lower classes. Massive emigration of educated Haitians begins. On the plus side, black middle class neighborhoods finally get paved roads, running water, and sewage systems.
1964 – Duvalier declares himself President for Life.
1971 – Duvalier dies, succeeded by his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as “Baby Doc”. Some of the more egregious human-rights violations are abolished, but Haiti continues to decline and has to rely upon U.S. and other foreign aid. Most of the actual governing of Haiti is left to Baby’s mother, Simone Duvalier, while Baby lives it up.
1980 – Baby Doc marries a mulatto, who forces Baby to exile Simone. Scandal and opposition ensues.
1983 – Pope John Paul II condemns the regime during a papal visit. Rebellion breaks out.
1986 – Baby Doc is forced from power by the army and sent to exile.
1987 – A new Constitution is written, allowing for an elected bicameral parliament, a president, and a prime minister. Political decentralization is also set up.
1990 – Jean Bertrand Aristide wins election to the Presidency in internationally-observed elections.
1991 – General Raoul Cedras overthrows Aristide in a military coup, and establishes a brutally repressive regime which murders some 3-5,000 Haitians over a three-year period.
1994 – Condemned by the UN, and facing an American invasion, Cedras steps down from power. Aristide returns to the Presidency.
1996 – Aristide’s ally Rene Preval is elected President. Aristide breaks with Preval and forms a new party.
1997 – Elections giving Aristide’s party a victory are not accepted by the government. The parliament disintegrates, and scheduled elections for the following year do not happen.
1999 – Preval dismisses all but a rump of the parliament, and rules by decree.
2000 – More elections, more disputed results, Aristide becomes President again but is not accepted by the Preval opposition. Elections scheduled for 2003 do not happen, and Aristide has to rule by decree.
2004 – Aristide either steps down, or is overthrown by revolt, or is forced out by the U.S. Boniface Alexandre becomes President. Human-rights abuses have been charged against his regime.
2006 – New Elections are held, and Rene Preval is again elected President. His regime has suffered from the high cost of food, which the President promised to reduce. He has called upon UN and Venezuelan assistance in lowering food prices.
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