Patrick Bellegarde-Smith is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has authored and coedited five books on Haiti, including The Breached Citadel, and served as president of the Haitian Studies Association. He has been featured in interviews by CNN International, NPR, and other major outlets.
Many observers of Haiti’s social disorder today maintain that the island country has always been dysfunctional. But the poverty and chaos in Haiti is of recent vintage, the product of disastrous decisions by political elites and heavy-handed US interference.