With its
mountainous scenery and tropical climate,
Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, has the basic ingredients of a holiday destination. However, decades of poverty, instability and violence, especially since the 1980s, have all but killed off this prospect and left it as the poorest nation in the Americas.
Under the brutal
dictatorships of the
voodoo physician, Francois ’Papa Doc’ Duvalier, and his son, Jean-Claude, known as ’Baby Doc’, political dissent was systematically eradicated
and opponents jailed or murdered. When Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected in 1990, the country’s future looked brighter until he was overthrown by the armed forces a short time later.
Although economic sanctions and US-led military intervention forced a return to constitutional government in 1994, Haiti’s fortune did not improve, with allegations of electoral irregularities, ongoing torture and brutality. In 2003, a wave of
protests against Aristide quickly spread throughout the country plunging Haiti into chaos. By 2004, armed rebels had seized control of many towns and violence spread across the island. In February 2004, Aristide fled the country.
Former president René Préval won presidential elections in 2006. But Haiti remains plagued by violent confrontations between rival gangs and political groups. The UN has described the human rights situation as ’catastrophic’.
GeographyHaiti is situated in the Caribbean and comprises the forested mountainous western end of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Its area includes the Île de la Gonâve, in the Gulf of the same name; among other islands is La Tortue off the north peninsula. Haiti’s coastline is dotted with magnificent beaches, between which stretches lush subtropical vegetation, even covering the slopes which lead down to the shore. Port-au-Prince is a magnificent natural harbor at the end of a deep horseshoe bay.
Next Page »
