Situation of Human Rights and Democracy in Haiti

Essay by attia87High School, 11th gradeA-, February 2004

download word file, 3 pages 5.0

Downloaded 100 times

Situation of Democracy and Human Rights in Haiti

The Republic of Haiti's political crisis remains un-resolved today. The country has been unstable for the past two centuries beginning when Haiti's nearly half million slaves revolted to become the first black republic to declare its independence from France in 1804. After years of internal upheaval, prolonged struggle and political mismanagement, the internal stability has become fragile and delicate. However, in 1987 Haiti got a constitution that was suspended the following year, yet the return of the constitutional rule took place on October in 1994 after the continuous change in the ruling parties.

Haiti is located in the Caribbean and occupies the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean and in the west of the Dominican Republic.

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, with more than three quarters of its population live in abject poverty and below poverty line.

In 1959 the uprising of the Haitians against Francois Duvalier, which founded a dictatorial dynasty that ruled the country by terror, led to the exile of his 19-year old son to France after the death of Francois Duvalier in 1986.

According to media sources in the past decade, Francois Duvalier was convicted of mass murder, as tens of thousands Haitians were killed during his rule. Since the social upheaval and revolt, the countries internal stability remained fragile with very few signs of improvement until the democratic leader Jean Bertrand Aristide became prime minister in 1990, followed by his presidential elections after the massacres of the 1987 voting elections. The democratic leader began the difficult tasks of cleaning out a corrupt civil service, enforcing tax codes, fighting drug trafficking, and delivering services to its citizens. The countries internal stability...