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Haiti INTEREST GROUPS
During the post-Duvalier period, other developments in
the
media, party organization, labor unions, and professional
associations took place. Understanding these changes is
essential
to understanding Haiti's political environment.
The Tonton Makout Network
The Duvalier dynasty held power longer than any other
regime
in Haitian history. The duration of the dynasty enabled
the
thorough entrenchment of Duvalierist institutions and the
development of a patronage system. One of the more
important of
these institutions was the VSN. After the VSN's
dissolution,
former tonton makout leaders remained at large, and
some
were politically active throughout the post-Duvalier
period. The
old makout networks also continued to function
within the
army. As of 1989, they were the main obstacle to free,
fair, and
popular elections in Haiti, and thet were the most
significant
threat to domestic security
(see Public Order
, ch. 10).
Through the VSN, the Duvalier regime had politicized
rural
Haiti. The VSN had expanded the president's influence to
remote
areas, and it had incorporated rural Haiti into a
political
system once limited almost exclusively to Port-au-Prince.
The VSN
had assured political control of the hinterlands, but it
had
given peasants no new voice in the political process. It
had
created a rural awareness of Port-au-Prince and events
there,
however, a consciousness of the national political system,
and
new political aspirations. The VSN had engendered a
generalized
disrespect for political institutions, and it had
heightened
expectations of profit from the political system.
Data as of December 1989
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