Product Description

Did Aristide leave Haiti voluntarily? Why did the U.S. want him out? What does the regime change mean for the health of Haitians? Did Aristide "overstay his welcome," in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, who never had a welcome in his own country to overstay? After 35 coups, what does the double entendre mean to get Haiti "right" this time?

From Noam Chomsky, author of the 100,000 copy cloth best seller, Hegemony and Survival, from Paul Farmer, subject of the New York Times biography by Tracy Kidder Mountains Beyond Mountains, from Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president of Haiti and first lady Mildred Aristide, from Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, come the answers the world has been waiting for.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #734184 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Amy Goodman is the controversial host of Democracy Now!

Paul Farmer is Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard medical School and Founding Director of Partners in Health. The subject of a just released biography by Tracy Kidder, Farmer is the author of The Uses of Haiti, Infections and Inequalities, and AIDS and Accusation. Greg Bates is Publisher at Common Courage Press.

Customer Reviews

Crucial to understanding the economic and political crisis in Haiti!
For activists interested in learning more about the recent U.S. military intervention in Haiti which resulted in massive human rights violations and the kidnapping of left-wing president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, this brief anthology of essays and Democracy Now! interviews is an excellent introduction. As the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, Haiti, a former French colony and current victim of World Bank/IMF structural adjustment programs, has suffered years of U.S. sponsored dictatorships and paramilitary violence. As a former Catholic priest who preached liberation theology, Aristide fought to improve the lives of Haiti's enormous underclass who for centuries have endured horrific levels of poverty, illness, political repression, illiteracy, and environmental destruction. For this transgression, Aristide, like Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile, was seen as a threat to mulitnational corporate interests and overthrown. As the global justice movement maintains its focus on Venezuela, Bolivia, Chiapas and the Middle East, it's important that we also not forget the situation in Haiti. Here, in the United States, we must also not ignore the plight of Haitian refugees who face criminalization and/or deportation as a result of racist immigration policies and who, like gay and bisexual men, have been scapegoated for the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Despite the poor reviews other people have posted on this website, I found this book to be a very educational and thought-provoking tool to help us better defend the poorest and most oppressed members of human society.

Misleading title...
This relatively short book is titled incorrectly. The title is derived from a statement from Ambassador James Dobbins talk on NPR, but it does not relate the actual content of this book. Also, to say the authors of this book are Noam Chomsky, Paul Farmer, and Amy Goodman, is misleading. Noam Chomsky has a short introduction (9 pages), which is not really all that informative. Paul Farmer's portion was a bit more interesting. Paul Farmer has many years experience living and working with the Haitian people and has written more in depth analysis of Haiti and the occurence of oppresion of third world countries in his books The Uses of Haiti (1994) and Pathologies of Power (2005).
The majority of this book is made up of transcripts from Democracy Now! radio and television broadcasts, and while a good introduction to the situation as it occurred in 2004, it does not adress any thing about steps to remediate the years of US and French backed coups. It does not explain the statements made by either Aristide and his supporters or the claims made by US officials - such as claims of corruption, etc.
The coverage by average US media organizations of this entire event was rather poor, much like the current coverage of the elections taking place currently in Haiti.

the information you really need to know
This book deals with the recent details of the perils or the crisis that have happened in this former slave island. The first democratically elected president Jean aristide has been kidnapped by US military ,and the nation has been handed over death squad paramilitary and drug trader;guy philies, chamblain,and US ciizen andy apaid. It simply says her sad history due to French and US military intervention, and also sad current situation that the first democratically elected(with 94 percent support),and more importantly, the rarest leader who cares about the interest of poor general population has been abducted and forced to leave the country due to US intervention. Most of the book was the interviews by DEMOCRACYNOW with journalists amy goodman, but the book begins with Chomsky's article(which made me buy the book) and paul farmer's description of the modern history of haiti.

I read every days LA and NY times,and had only vague idea about this island until this book. The book kept suprising me too much for me to stop reading. It shows grim current situation and future of the nation, and the clear violation of Human right and internation regulation by US contras.