What about Mandela and the civil war in South Africa between 1990 and 1994. Thousands of people were killed during the fights between Mandela's ANC with the help of various communist/socialist groups, and the racist government, far-right white supremacist and Zulu tribes.
Also Uganda and its million victims, Congo, Sudan, etc. The list is long. ----- Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it -Mark Twain
Uganda never had a revolution per se. A military coup does not a revolutin make.
A lot of killing also does not make a revolution.
I assume that by referring to Sudan, you didn't mean the Islamic revolution of 1989.... Sudan has had several of what would generally be considered civil wars, in which the sides have been divided by ethnicity, livlihood, religion and a host of other factors. I suppose that if one of them were to have been successful, and spawned a new country hewn out of the old Sudan, then it might have been considered a popular revolution, but they have not succeeded and thus are still considered civil wars. (Much like the American one, I might add.)
In that vein, I suppose Eritrea could be considered to have had a revolution prior to 1993. Eritreans consider it a war for independence.
The people of South Africa generally do not think of their transition to democracy as a revolution, and I would add that the "struggle" (which is the word they use to describe the work of anti-apartheid forces both peaceful and otherwise) began long before 1990. Yes, a lot of people died in political violence between 1990 and 1994 (and, in fact, in 1995, and 1999) but that does not necessarily equate to a civil war, nor a revolution. For as radical a transformation as that society experienced, what is remarkable about the level of bloodshed is not how great it was, but how small.
A friend of mine who's in her mid-30s now and went to school in Swaziland with some of the young lions of the ANC, and the children of the old lions, said it something like this: "Thank God that Mandela and Sisulu and that generation were in charge. Because I love my friends, but if they had been running the show, there would have been blood in the streets."
Uganda might have started as a coup with the intention of changing the status quo but finishes as a large-scale violence between two groups.
A revolution doesn't have to be bloody. But it have to make attempt to change the status quo. You speak about radical changes. Radical changes cannot happen without revolution of some sort, whether political, cultural, industrial, scientific, etc. ----- Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it -Mark Twain
South Africa also does not fit your definition, in that it was not change through force. Although the armed struggle was an aspect of the anti-apartheid movement, it was only an aspect, and the leaders of that struggle were well aware that they would not achieve their goal through force alone. The transition in South Africa was a negotiated one. I understand how one could see it as a revolution, and it would fit some definitions of that term. What I am saying is that South Africans rarely use that term to describe it.
The anti-apartheid struggle lasted for generations. To speak of a "revolution of 1994" would negate the decades of work and struggle that led up to the democratic elections. The ANC was formed in 1912; the National Party took power in South Africa and began institutionalizing its apartheid policies in 1948; the Defiance Campagain began in 1952; the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955; Chief Albert Lutuli won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960; the armed struggle began the following year, with the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) in 1961. I could go on. The point being, one cannot speak of "the revolution of 1952-1994" without sounding ridiculous.
A luta continua!
Haiti's liberation from France allowed the US to double in size and become the dominant power of the Americas.
Where the Hiatians rewarded for this?
Of course not. Instead their armed victory over the French troops was regarded as a direct threat to the southern slave states in the US. Haiti's ports were blocked and all trade with Haiti was prohibited. And France never forgave them for breaking away from her either.
Und so weiter. Until today.
"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
It's true that the loss of Saint-Domingue, as the French called their colony, was a huge blow to their interests in the "New World". But in fact French chances of dominating the North American continent had been scotched almost a half-century earlier by defeat in the Seven Years' War (known in America as the French and Indian War). Hopes of meaningfully linking and settling French territory from the Gulf to Canada were put an end to then, by the British victory in Quebec and the fall of strategic forts like Frontenac and Duquesne. US settlers were moving into the gap before the end of the century: the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio were admitted to the Union in 1792, 1796, and 1803 respectively.
All of which takes nothing away, imho, from your point that Haiti has been a scandalously neglected and mistreated country since it became the first independent black republic in history.
My Significant Other was forced to eat grass to survive after US troops had come to her parents farm in the mountains of Haiti and pre-emptively culled all their pigs because of fear that American soldiers could bring a pig desease back home to Wisconsin. Her family was never paid for their loss and suffered hunger because of it.
Read also (16 years after the fact!):
2 Mar 2006 16:45 GMT
...Grassroots International, joining forces with a national peasant movement, to reintroduce the Creole pig to Haiti after the United States, to protect its own swine industry following a 1980 outbreak of swine flu, pressured Haiti to kill its entire pig population. "The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
Creole pig:
