DBWI: Haiti did not fall to the Communists

It has been 24 hours since the People's Republic of Haiti was struck by an earthquake. The Great People's Hall in Port-au-Prince and the headquarters of the Aristideville Soviet suffered total damage.

Ever since the Communists won the Haitian Civil War in 1974, Haiti has been criticized for having the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere. Haitian author Wyclef Jean, survivor of the "re-education" camps that have dominated the Artibonite Valley, proved it in his bestselling autobiography.

If the Cuban-funded Marxist revolutionaries not succeeded in overthrowing the Duvalier regime, would conditions in Haiti improve? Would the Venezuelans and Cubans dominate the humanitarian efforts if Haiti was a democratic country?
 
[OOC] 1974 is a bit past 1900 isn't it?

[IC] Well, the Duvalier regime wasn't exactly the best with regards to human rights either, and you'd probably see them crack down even more on any kind of dissident following a fiasco like that. With CIA funding of course.

Of course, without the communists ruling Haiti, the soviets might not have started giving so much support and funding to the Cubans with regards t their efforts in the Caribbean and Central America. Without the Escalation, you might not see as many bloody civil wars and coups in the area.
 
Well, as I recall, Thomas Friedman wrote a column in the NYT in, what, 2007 theorizing that without the Communists, Haiti would have developed a working multi-party democracy by 1991 and (with the expansion of US business interests in the country) would have a living standard comparable to OTL southern Europe today.

Seems reasonable to me.

OOC: ;)
 
I dont agree. The reforestation programms would not have been as succesfull without a strong state to inforce it. Haiti would be very much treeless and soilless by now, i guess.
 
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