The politics of intervention: Haiti, human rights, and the influence of the international community, 1957-1994

From 1957 to 1994, the various governments of Haiti have for the most part practiced autocratic and oppressive means of maintaining order. With the exception of a brief ten month period from December 1990 to October 1991 in which the democratically elected Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide was president, state-sponsored violence, arbitrary arrests and torture, and censorship were all consistent fixtures within the political system. Outside Haiti, the international community looked upon these regimes' human rights violations with disfavour, yet was rarely willing to act in order to ameliorate the situation.; The purpose of this thesis is to prove that the three major components of the international community--concerned governments in Canada and the United States, the United Nations and the Organization of American States, and Human Rights Non Government Organizations (NGOs)--at various instances acted both in concert and against one another to create a policy for protecting human rights and promoting democracy in Haiti that gradually became more and more interventionist. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...