Customer Reviews

Plunging into Haiti: Clinton, Aristide, and the Defeat of Diplomacy (Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Book)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The name Pezzullo, for those concerned with Haiti, is infinitely divisive. Ralph Pezzullo is the son of Lawrence Pezzullo, one of the State Department's special diplomats whom the Clinton Administration contracted to force both the Cedras regime and the exiled Aristide administration to settle their dispute and come to some compromise where Aristide would return to power after his ouster in the early 1990s. Lawrence Pezzullo was likened to a devil by advocates of Aristide and far-left-leaning protesters in the United States for forcing Aristide to compromise with the Haitian military which they accused of being mass-killers.

"Plunging into Haiti" is essentially about the operations of the Clinton Administration that eventually led to the 1994 US Intervation and restoration of Aristide. I thoroughly enjoyed Ralph Pezzullo's book because it tells the same old story from the fresh, different point of view of Lawrence Pezzullo. Before reading this book the maddening indecisiveness and awkward behavior of the Clinton Administration made little sense to me. I was surprised how frustrated Pezzullo was with his fellow State Department officials, and by the discord and chaos within the US Administration itself. Perhaps this book should have been named "Plunging into the US State Department."

Needless to say, this book is blatantly one-sided and biased in favor of Lawrence Pezzullo. So: this book is only valuable if you read it with others that tell the story from different points of view. I suggest reading Paul Farmer's "Uses of Haiti" together with this book for a mind-expanding debate. Farmer slams the Clinton Administration for forcing Aristide to compromise with Cedras; while, Pezzullo feels that Aristide as a president in exile had no right to complain about US tactics to restore him to power.

Also, I really disliked how each chapter is interrupted by condensed introductory summaries of the history of Haiti. Ralph Pezzullo intended this book to serve training diplomats--BAD IDEA; because this topic is too complex, too divisive--this book is only one side of the story. This book should NOT be your introduction to Haiti. But it should definately be on your list if you are familiar with Haiti's history and have already considered different points of view.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Haiti, U.S. foreign policy making, diplomacy and multinational negotiations.