year’s parliamentary elections in Haiti. If such a poll was conducted, he expected reporters to ask candidates about their view on this issue, and those who wanted to keep the military would be unlikely to win. Those politicians who promised to favor abolition of the military to get elected could then be held accountable by grassroots organizations to keep their promise after the elections.

Global Demilitarization was able to raise the necessary funds, and the poll was conducted in Haiti in March and early April 1995. Events moved even more rapidly than Arias had expected, and his strategy proved to be a great success. At a news conference in Port-au-Prince on April 28, 1995, Arias could announce that 62 percent of the Haitian people wished to abolish the army,and only 12 percent wished to keep it, with the rest undecided. When President Aristide heard these results, he stepped to the microphone and spontaneously announced that given the clear wish of the majority of his people, he herewith declared the army abolished!

The American media almost totally ignored this important event. But President Aristide, when asked in an interview after the election of his successor what he considered his greatest achievement during his term in office, he said abolishing the Haitian military.

Oscar Arias has had previous successes. After President Guillermo Endara was installed to office in Panama in December 1989 by U.S. troops who ousted strongman Manuel Noriega, no Latin American country was willing to recognize him, even though he had won a democratic election. Latin Americans, for