Jeb Sprague will speak about his new book, Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy (Monthly Review Press, 2012), in which he investigates the dangerous world of right-wing paramilitarism in Haiti and its role in undermining the democratic aspirations of the Haitian people. The book focuses on the period beginning in 1990 with the rise of Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the right-wing movements that succeeded in driving him from power. Over the ensuing two decades, paramilitary violence was largely directed against the poor and supporters of Aristide’s Lavalas movement, taking the lives of thousands of Haitians. Sprague traces connections between paramilitaries and their elite financial and political backers, in Haiti but also in the United States and the Dominican Republic. The product of years of original research, this book draws on over fifty interviews and more than 11,000 documents secured through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Sprague is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He received a Project Censored Award in 2008 for an article (co-authored with Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre) from Port-au-Prince, and has written for the Inter Press Service, TeleSUR, Al Jazeera, NACLA, Haiti Liberté, and Haiti Progrès.

The event is sponsored by the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. For more information, contact Robert Jensen, rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

Location: 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, 78723 – 5604manor.org