Haiti, 1984 — dissident coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 1 June 1984, at the outset of the popular uprising against President Jean-Claude Baby Doc Duvalier of Haiti. The revolt began with protests in Gonaives on 23 May 1984, dubbed Operation Dechoukaj (Uprooting), sparked when police publicly beat a pregnant vendor who lost her child and died, in a city gripped by soaring food prices and unemployment. The army deployed to Gonaives and killed at least three protesters, while crowds raided food distribution warehouses and unrest spread through towns and villages nationwide into November 1984.
A wave of arrests followed the riots, and by the end of 1984 roughly 35 intellectuals who had spoken against government corruption were rounded up and imprisoned without charge until April 1985. Separately, an army plot to remove Duvalier, led by Lieutenant General Henri Namphy and Colonel Williams Regala, was already well under way, though not connected to the popular revolt. The 1 June 1984 coding sits at the beginning of this year of anti-Duvalier unrest and conspiracy that culminated in Duvalier's flight in February 1986.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
04106011984
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Duvalier survived the 1984 unrest but fled into exile on 7 February 1986.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
New York Times
Afro-American
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →