On November 29, 1987, people armed with machine guns and machetes took to the streets of Port-au-Prince, opening fire on men and women waiting in lines to cast their ballots in the first free elections held in Haiti since 1957. Thirty-four would-be voters were reported killed and many were seriously hurt. This bloody episode was the culmination of a process that was set in motion on February 7, 1986, when former President-for-life Jean-Claude Duvalier flew out of the country in a U.S. government plane. His departure ended nearly three decades of a family dictatorship started by Francois Duvalier, the ousted president's father. International and especially Western media followed Jean-Claude Duvalier's flight into exile with the same intensity of interest that they devoted to deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, who for several decades had ruled the Philippines with an iron hand. The story lines are similar in both cases. Plagued by widespread poverty, both Haiti and the Philippines succeeded in overthrowing a political tyranny and appeared to be establishing a new political system where freedom and respect for human rights would be the basis for a long-desired democracy. Almost three years later, the Philippines has been able to establish a fragile but thriving democracy under the leadership of popularly elected President, Coraz?n Aquino. In Haiti, however, unrest, violence, and confusion continue to make headlines, while freedom, human rights, political choice, and representative democracy remain elusive. Elections held last January 17 to select a new president and a two-house congress were reported to be fraught with irregularities. Furthermore, a conspicuous majority of the population stayed away from the polls, some obviously protesting against the electoral process, others fearing a repetition of the killings that marred the previously aborted elections. According to estimates, about 30 per cent of the electorate actually went to the polls. While Haitians remained strongly divided by seemingly irreconcilable political issues, a much expected coup d'etat by the military on June 20