Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment

Once the most lucrative European colony in the Caribbean, Haiti has long been one of the most divided and impoverished countries in the world. In the late 1980s a remarkable popular mobilization known as Lavalas, or “the flood,” sought to liberate the island from decades of US-backed dictatorial rule. After winning a landslide election victory, in 1991 the Lavalas government led by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by a bloody military coup. Damming the Flood analyzes how and why Aristide’s enemies in Haiti, the US and France made sure that his second government, elected with another overwhelming majority in 2000, was toppled by a further coup in 2004.

The elaborate international campaign to contain, discredit and then overthrow Lavalas at the start of the twenty-first century was perhaps the most successful act of imperial sabotage since the end of the Cold War. Its execution and its impact have much to teach anyone interested in the development of today's political struggles in Latin America and the rest of the post-colonial world.

Praise for Damming the Flood:

“Damming the Flood is a brilliant, politically sophisticated and morally infuriating work on a shameful piece of very recent history that the U.S. press has either distorted or ignored. It is the most important and devastating book I’ve read on American betrayal of democracy in one of the most tormented nations in the world.” — Jonathan Kozol, author of Death at an Early Age, Rachel and her Children, and Savage Inequalities

“The book is a masterpiece. As someone who lived through those years, Damming the Flood is not only incredibly accurate and well sourced but the analysis is also flawless.” — Ira Kurzban, immigration lawyer and former attorney for the Haitian Government

“This is a book about the latest crime that the world’s most powerful nation committed against one of the world’s poorest. I like this book for its scholarship, its measured tone, and its good writing. But I am grateful for it above all because at long last it presents another side of a story that has been reported, almost universally, with stunning tendentiousness and in apparent ignorance of the lives and opinions of most Haitians. This book goes a long way to setting the record straight. ... It ought to be required reading for every historian of the Americas and for every student of political science.” — Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains Beyond Mountains

“Damming the Flood is the best source for anyone trying to understand what has happened in Haiti, and it is unfortunately equally valuable for explaining what is happening elsewhere in Latin America. It is meticulously researched, with ample citations to the mainstream press, human rights reports, and experts from many countries and political perspectives.” — Brian Concannon, Jr., director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti

“Very convincing, a marvellous book. This riveting and deeply-informed account should be carefully read by those who recognize that Haiti's tragic history is a microcosm of imperial savagery and heroic resistance – resistance which, as Hallward argues, will continue to shape Haiti's political future if its people are granted the opportunity to take their fate into their own hands.” — Noam Chomsky, MIT.

“Damming the Flood demonstrates that, contrary to what so many self-proclaimed experts have led us to believe with the steady diet of half-truths and outright lies they have been feeding us, it is indeed possible to ‘get Haiti right.’ All it takes is a healthy dose of respect for a nation and a people so deserving of it, and an uncompromising devotion to the truth.” — Patrick Elie, political activist and former Secretary of State for National Defense, Haiti.

“Damming the Flood is an excellent book, the best study of its kind. It offers the first accurate analysis of recent Haitian history, and of its history in the making. Finally, we have an honest rendering of how the Haitian poor sought to advance their struggle for dignity at the close of the twentieth century, and of the forces that have stymied their struggle. Hallward's new book is required reading for anyone who seeks to know Haiti and to understand the forces arrayed against all those who believe in genuine democracy.” — Paul Farmer, Harvard University.

Peter Hallward Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in the UK. His research ranges across several debates in recent continental philosophy and the reception of postcolonial literature; he also works on some of the obstacles currently facing progressive political movements in various parts of the world. Damming the Flood is his fourth book, after Absolutely Postcolonial (2001), Badiou: A Subject to Truth (2003), and Out of this World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation (2006).