Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide (born
July 15,
1953) is a
Haitian politician and former
Roman Catholic priest who was
President of Haiti in
1991, again from
1994 to
1996, and then from
2001 to
2004. Aristide was the second democratically elected leader of Haiti and was popular among its poor inhabitants. He was overthrown twice, first in a military
coup d'etat in September, 1991, and subsequently in a
coup d'etat in 2004 in which former soldiers prominently participated (
February 2004). After his second ouster, he maintained from exile in
South Africa that he was still the legal and legitimate president and that
United States forces had
kidnapped him
.
Aristide was born in Port-Salut, Haiti. He was educated at
Salesian schools in
Port-au-Prince and at the
College Notre Dame, graduating in
1974. He then took a course of novitiate studies in
La Vega,
Dominican Republic before returning to Haiti to study
philosophy at the
Grand Seminaire Notre Dame and
psychology at the
State University of Haiti. After completing his post-graduate studies in
1979, he travelled in
Europe, studying in
Italy and
Israel. Aristide returned to Haiti in
1983 for his ordination as a Salesian priest.
He was appointed
curate of a small
parish in Port-au-Prince and then a larger one in the
La Saline slums, gaining the affectionate
Kréyòl nickname "Titide" or "Titid" (tiny Aristide). An exponent of
liberation theology, he became a leading figure in the more radical wing of the Catholic faith in Haiti (the
ti legliz â€" from the Kréyòl for "little church"), broadcasting his sermons on the national Catholic radio station. The
Duvalier regime tried repeatedly to silence him. Only the collapse of the regime in April
1986 saved him.
In
1995 Aristide left the priesthood. In
1996 he married
Mildred Trouillot, a
US citizen, with whom he has two daughters.
First presidency and coup
Following the violence at the abortive national elections of
1987, the
1990 polls were approached with caution. Aristide announced his candidacy for the presidency and following a six-week campaign, during which he dubbed his followers "Lavalas" â€" "the flood" or "torrent" in Kréyòl â€" the "little priest" was elected President with 67 percent of the vote.
Aristide took office on February 7, 1991, becoming Haiti's first democratically elected leader [The previous election held by the military dictatorship of Leslie Manigat was not a democratic election].
Raoul Cédras seized power in Septempter 30, 1991 coup.
[ ]Mr. Aristide, who accuses the
United States and
France of conspiring to force him out of power, filed a lawsuit in
Paris last week accusing unnamed French officials of "death threats, kidnapping and sequestration" in connection with his flight to Africa.: The
Bush administration insists that Mr. Aristide had personally asked for help and voluntarily boarded a U.S. plane. "He drafted and signed his letter of resignation all by himself and then voluntarily departed with his wife and his own security team," Mr. Powell said.
Many media sources reported that Aristide had resigned and been refused asylum by
South Africa. On
March 1,
2004, US Congresswoman
Maxine Waters (D-CA), along with
Randall Robinson, a family friend of the Aristides, each reported that Aristide had told them using a smuggled cellular telephone that he had been forced to resign against his will by United States diplomats and
Marines, and that he was abducted against his will, and continued to be held hostage by an undisclosed armed military guard
. When asked whether Aristide was guarded in the
Central African Republic by
French officers, the French
Defense Minister answered that Aristide was protected, not imprisoned, and that he would leave when he could; and that France had many officers present in the Central African Republic following the recent events in that country, but that they did not control Aristide's comings and goings.
Both Maxine Waters and United States congressman
Charles Rangel who also reported talking to Aristide via cellular telephone, said that Aristide said he had not been handcuffed while being led away, while the Agence France Press reported that the caretaker at Aristide's house claimed that Aristide had been handcuffed and led away at gunpoint. Other reports of Aristide being led away by heavily armed American troops have been made by an Aristide bodyguard and an American film maker. Aristide told
CNN that there were unidentified civilian Americans and Haitians who had forced him to resign and board the plane leaving Haiti. The
Steele Foundation, which provided presidential protection for Aristide confirmed that their bodyguards accompanied the President on this flight.
The United States vice-president
Dick Cheney and Secretary of State
Colin Powell both reported that Aristide had resigned willingly. The
Associated Press reported that the Central African Republic tried to get Aristide to stop repeating his charges to the press
. Aristide has further alleged that the resignation statement that is being touted was altered to remove a conditional statement in which he stated, "'If I am obliged to leave in order to avoid bloodshed."; this was confirmed by a Reuters translation of Aristide's original statement, which matches up word for word except for the one line, in which the conditional has been removed. On
14 March 2004, he left the
Central African Republic for
Jamaica, to the dismay of the French and American governments, who felt that his presence in the area would have a destabilizing effect on Haiti. The American ambassador to Haiti, James Foley, issued a warning to Aristide to stay at least 150 miles away from Haiti at all times.
Condoleezza Rice is reported to have said that she did not want him in the Western Hemisphere
.
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to
Colin Powell, also commented on Aristide in an interview with
Amy Goodman:
AMY GOODMAN: Why say that the president, Aristide, had an obsession with power? This was a man who was the democratically elected president of Haiti, certainly got a higher percentage of the vote than President Bush got in this country.: COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Please, don't refer to the percentage of vote as equatable to democracy, as equatable to the kinds of institutions we have reflecting democracy in America
After arriving in
Jamaica, Aristide gave a full interview, in which he claimed the following specifics (note: The US has neither confirmed nor denied these details, but has insisted that Aristide left willingly): He had met with US ambassador James Foley on
February 28,
2004 â€" the day before the rebels were supposed to attack the capital. Foley agreed that Aristide should go on national television to appeal to the nation to remain calm, as he had done the night before. When he arrived at his residence, it was surrounded by "thousands" of troops, mostly Americans, which made him feel intimidated. The Americans told him they would provide him security as they escorted him to the media; however, instead, they took him straight to a white unmarked aircraft with a US flag on the side. He was then obligated to board, followed by US troops in full gear who changed into civilian clothes once on board. On board were his wife and 19 members of
Steele Foundation, a private military company.
Aristide's account was directly backed up by two witnesses: a pilot and Aristide aide, Franz Gabriel; and an American security guard on the security detail, who told the
Washington Post about the subterfuge to lure Aristide away: "That was just bogus. It's a story they fabricated"
.
In a report published on
October 28,
2005,
Granma, the official
Cuban news service, alleged that
United States politician
Caleb McCarry engineered Aristide's overthrow.
On
May 31,
2004, Aristide and his family flew to
Johannesburg,
South Africa, along with
US Congressmen from the
Congressional Black Caucus. South Africa characterized his stay as "temporary".
After
Rene Preval, a former ally of Aristide, was elected as president of Haiti, he has hinted that Aristide might return to Haiti.
[Reforms under AristideEven under the conditions of intensive foreign destabilization the Aristide government invested in such fields as education, medical training, and a program to fight human trafficking (under a yearly budget of approximately $300 million and a population of 8 million). Soup kitchens were started across the country where the poor had available free literacy programs. 500 Cuban doctors took up positions across the country. Daring to refuse IMF requests to privatize it's public industries, while simultaneously raising the minimum wage for Haitian garment industry workers and bringing about an international lawsuit against France for twenty one billion dollars in colonial reparations - the Aristide government quickly accumulated a powerful cast of enemies. Source [1]#Agence Haitienne de Presse (Independent Haitian News Service) Hidden From the Headlines: The U.S. War Against Haiti, by Laura Flynn, Robert Roth and Pierre Labossiere, published by the Haiti Action Committee, September 2003, available at www.haitiaction.net. #Interviews and site visits conducted by the authors in Port-au-Prince in January and July 2004. L'enfant en Domesticité en Haiti, Produit D'Un Fossé Historique, Mildred Aristide, March 2003. Address of Jean-Bertrand Aristide on the occasion of the Haitian Bicentennial, January 1, 2004. #Haiti Information Projectâ€"reports and eyewitness accounts available at www.haitiaction.net. "Option Zero in Haiti," by Peter Hallard in the New Left Review, Mayâ€"June 2004. "Haiti's Wretched of the Earth," Paul Farmer, Tikkun Magazine, Mayâ€"June 2004. "Concretizing Democracy" (series of reports) by Michelle Karshan, Office of the Foreign Press Liaison. #Haitian Government Briefing Papers issued February 7, 2003. (February 7, 2003 "The Aids Crisis and Healthcare," "Haiti's Police Force," "Promoting Investment and Raising the Minimum Wage," "Battling Corruption and Drug Trafficking," "Justice"). L'Union (Haitian government daily paper of record). #HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS Report of the Center for the Study of Human Rights, University of Miami Law School, January 18, 2005. The whole report, including photographs, is available at www.ijdh.org/CSHRhaitireport.pdf. The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti has issued four reports documenting systematic, widespread attacks against Lavalas officials, grassroots activists and the press, and abuse of the judicial system for political reprisals. These reports are available www.ijdh.org. Haiti Accompaniment Project Reports, July 29, 2004, November, 2004, document human rights abuses and the reversal of Lavalas social and economic programs. (available at www.haitiaction.net)#Now unavailable news pieces by Yahoo News, Reuters et. al.* Google News Coverage â€" Jean-Bertrand Aristide]
* Democracy Now! coverage of Aristide's ouster (text/audio/video)
* CommonDreams: the US and France denies Aristide's charges; but block UN probes
* [https://listhost.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/haiti-news Haiti-news list] News from Haiti
* Naomi Klein, The Guardian, July 18, 2005, "6/7: the massacre of the poor that the world ignored: The US cannot accept that the Haitian president it ousted still has support"
* Paul Farmer, Who Removed Aristide? London Review of Books 15 April 2004
* Who Is Aristide? by Paul Farmer in The use of Haiti
* Timeline of events relating to Jean-Bertrand Aristide
* [2] 'Researchers blog on the coup and destabilization in Haiti (2000-2004)]
* 'The Return': Aristide, Law and Democracy in Haiti, JURIST
