Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is the Salesian priest of the slums of Port-au-Prince who was elected president of Haiti in December 1990 with two-thirds of the vote in the first free election the country had held, was overthrown by the army after seven months, was restored in October 1994 by twenty thousand American troops, served out his term, was elected again in 2000 in a vote the opposition boycotted, and was flown out of the country in February 2004 on an American plane as armed rebels reached the capital, in what he called a kidnapping and Washington called his resignation. He spent seven years in South Africa and came home in 2011. He was born in 1953, ordained in 1982, and preached liberation theology at St Jean Bosco in La Saline, where his sermons against Duvalier and then against the generals who followed made him the voice of the poor and the target of the Macoutes, who burned the church around him during mass in September 1988 and killed thirteen people. His order expelled him for politics. The movement called Lavalas, the flood, carried him to the presidency in the election of December 1990, and he took office in February 1991 with a programme of literacy, land and a purge of the Duvalierist army. The army's commander overthrew him on 30 September 1991 and the junta killed some three thousand people in three years while the OAS and the United Nations embargoed the country and refugees took to boats. President Clinton, under pressure from the Black Caucus and the boats, sent the invasion force that Jimmy Carter talked the generals into not resisting, and Aristide returned to the palace on 15 October 1994, disbanded the army, and in 1996 handed over to his elected successor, the first peaceful transfer in Haitian history. He married, founded a foundation, and came back in 2000 amid disputed legislative elections. The second term was corrupt, armed gangs called chimeres enforced it, aid was frozen, and when former soldiers took Gonaives and Cap-Haitien in February 2004 the Americans and French told him to go. He left before dawn on 29 February. From Pretoria he taught and wrote, returned two days before the 2011 election, and has lived in his house at Tabarre since, his Fanmi Lavalas party a force and himself, at seventy, still the most divisive man in the country.
- Lived: 1953 CE – ?
- Nationality: Haitian
- Roles: president, priest, politician
