1994-10-15: (Aristide Returns to Haiti and Resumes the Presidency, Disbands the Army That Had Overthrown Him, and Creates the National Police, the Most Conse…

1994-10-15: (Aristide Returns to Haiti and Resumes the Presidency, Disbands the Army That Had Overthrown Him, and Creates the National Police, the Most Consequential Institutional Decision of the Post-Duvalier Era): On October 15, 1994, Aristide returned to Haiti and resumed the presidency he had been denied for three years. The UN lifted trade sanctions. The 1987 constitution was fully reinstated. Aristide created the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Women’s Rights. And then he made the most consequential institutional decision of the post-Duvalier era: on February 6, 1995, he disbanded the Haitian Army, the institution that had overthrown him, and created the National Police to replace it. The army had been the decisive political actor in Haiti since the Americans created the National Guard during the occupation. Every coup, every strongman, every military government had depended on it. Aristide eliminated it. The decision was celebrated by his supporters as the removal of the instrument that had prevented democracy. It was condemned by his critics as the elimination of the only institution capable of maintaining order. Both assessments contained truth. The army was gone. What replaced it was an underequipped, undertrained police force in a nation where every political dispute had historically been resolved by armed men.