Four dates, among others, have marked, in the country’s recent history, the different stages of our growing accustomedness to foreign interference.

The visit of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young to Port-au-Prince in August 1977, under the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Jean-Claude Duvalier, ushered in the era of interference by suggestion; the first public statements in Haiti by U.S. Ambassador Alvin P. Adams, known as Bourik Chaje, confronted the country with openly assumed interference; the speech delivered before the United Nations General Assembly by provisional President Ertha Pascal Trouillot launched the era of invited interference. Finally, the visit this September 2026 by CARICOM’s Eminent Persons confirms the inability of Haiti’s political class to exist without a helping hand from abroad and installs foreign actors in the role of permanent arbiters of our crises and our power-sharing arrangements.