Blackwell Reference Online

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In the year of the 200th anniversary of national independence, Haiti witnessed the second violent overthrow of its president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide . Those democratic forces within the Haitian bourgeoisie which had, from the end of the 1980s to 1991, supported his rise to president now formed an alliance with the death squads of the past dictatorships, along with former military officers, with the aim of overthrowing Aristide. In this they counted upon the support of foreign powers. The resistance against the coup was weak because Lavalas, the grassroots movement that supported the president, had lost a significant amount of support. On February 5, 2004, the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front took over the port city of Gonaïves in western Haiti. The Front was led by Jean Pierre Baptiste and Butteur Métayer, both of whom had been freed from the Gonaïves prison through a break-in by the Cannibal Army in August 2002. Métayer was the leader of the Cannibal Army, which developed from a grassroots group within the government party, Fanmi Lavalas; however, he had turned against Aristide and had been arrested in connection with violent riots in Gonaïves. Baptiste had done time in Gonaïves prison for his participation in the massacre of Raboteau (in 1994, during the putsch government). Starting out in Gonaïves, the rebels began a campaign of conquest throughout the northern part ... log in or subscribe to read full text