11 October 1991 to January 1992 · Haitianspan
An oil embargo, seven thousand boat people and a name nobody wanted
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A hundred thousand Haitians marched for Aristide in New York on 11 October 1991. The OAS imposed an oil and trade embargo on 23 October and George Bush ordered American compliance on 5 November. Haiti held no strategic fuel reserve and could not last many days without imports. Boats began leaving again, and nearly seven thousand people were picked up at sea within two months. Washington would not hand them straight back to the officers it had just condemned, so it opened a camp at Guantanamo Bay, which reached twelve thousand five hundred people and could grow no further. Talks in Cartagena turned on the office of prime minister, which under the 1987 constitution carried the working power while the president was head of state. Aristide's term ran five years and could not be renewed, so every month in exile was a month spent. The negotiators settled on Rene Theodore and Aristide agreed on 8 January 1992. Within the month a bodyguard was killed, Theodore himself was beaten, and the nomination died.
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