Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Haiti: Historical Setting
to food, care, schools, literacy, honest and dignified work,
social security, and the fundamental rights of man." All of this
had to be done "without violence . . . out of respect and love of
liberty." Many Haitians were deeply moved by the papal visit.
The government was not. The papal message seemed to provide
permission to the clergy and laity to pressure the government
for reform, and ultimately, if it could not change, for
Jean-Claude Duvalier to leave office.
Subsequently, the popular church, or small church ( ti-legliz) ,
and the Catholic radio station, Radio Soleil, sought to make
Haitians aware of the role that government should have and to
urge people to protest when anyone's rights were usurped. The
response of the government to increased public discontent and
demands for openness was more repression. Demonstrators
were shot. Meetings and church services were invaded. Newspaper
publishers and owners of radio stations, including Radio
Soleil, which became the symbol of anti-Duvalierist resistance,
were killed or deported, and their newspapers were closed.
In early 1985, the government passed legislation that would
allow political parties, and it released some political prisoners.
That July the government held a referendum on the presidency,
but the patently sham ballot did not fool Haitians, and
these staged events, including the October firing of Roger
Lafontant, the brutal minister of interior, served only to reconfirm
opinion that the government was beyond repair.
On November 26, 1985, the commemoration of a 1980 government
crackdown turned the next day into a demonstration
for "an end to misery, the Constitution, and the Duvalier government."
On November 28, troops intervened in Gonaives
and randomly opened fire, killing three previously uninvolved
students. The government announced the formation of a commission
to investigate the events at Gonaives but closed Radio
Soleil to prevent its broadcasts. These events convinced Haitians
that Duvalier had to go. Antigovernment protests,
marches, and school and university strikes spread to other cities.
In last-ditch efforts to save his presidency, Duvalier
revamped his cabinet, lowered the cost of cooking oil and several
other basic consumer items, invited the church for talks,
announced a military reform and the dissolution of the political
police, and promised to bring to trial those presumed
responsible for the killings in Gonaives. The public was neither
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