IJDH Executive Director Brian Concannon comments on the international community’s historical role in Haiti in Policy Reform Now.

According to Brian Concannon, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer and the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, “There was actually substantial progress across a variety of fronts from 1995-2004, under both Aristide and Preval. In my area, justice, but also education, healthcare, basic governance, the economy, etc. But it came crashing down in 2004.”

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Looking back, Mr. Concannon said, “I believed until close to the end that [Mr. Aristide and his allies] did have a chance of making the progress sustainable. But in retrospect this was naive. The US, France and other powerful countries were just not ready to allow an independent Haiti to succeed.”

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“The underlying theme is that the world, dominated in 1804 by slaveholding countries, and dominated by former slave-holding countries now, has never allowed Haiti to succeed as an independent country,” said Mr. Concannon. This holds true for economics, politics and really anything that others took an interest in.

Read the full article here.