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Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, was born in Douyon, Haiti, and raised by the Salesian Order. He became a popular religious leader and a radical populist, winning the presidency in 1990. He was deposed in a military coup in 1991, reinstated in 1994, and re-elected in 2000 amid protests over vote-rigging. He was ousted again in 2004 and fled to South Africa, where he continues to speak about the plight of the Haitian people. He has written several books on the subject.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the first democratically elected president of Haiti and certainly one of its most controversial leaders. Born July 15, 1953 in Douyon, Haiti, he was orphaned at an early age and raised in the care of the Salesian Order, an order of the Roman Catholic Church. He received an excellent education, attending parochial schools, then a seminary. He studied in Israel, Great Britain, Canada and Egypt and received a BA in psychology from the University of Montreal. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is known as an accomplished speaker, fluent in eight languages, including his native Creole, Portuguese, German, Italian, English, French, Spanish and Hebrew.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide received his ordination from the Roman Catholic Church in 1982 and quickly became a popular religious leader in Haiti. Once his preaching began to take a more political turn, he was removed from the Salesian order. He became known as a radical populist, in stark contrast to the current dictatorship in Haiti. Aristide regularly railed publicly against Francois (Papa Doc) and Jean-Paul (BaDoc) Duvalier, father-son dictators who had brutally oppressed his fellow Haitians.
In 1986, spurred by public outcry, the Duvaliers fled the country and the army took over Haiti. Jean-Bertrand Aristide continued his charitable work with the poor of Haiti by establishing a children’s home and a health clinic. Local and international pressure led to the first democratic elections in 1990, and Aristide decided to enter the race late in the race. Although his Lavalas (“avalanche”) party failed to gain a significant hold in parliament, Aristide won just over 67% of the popular vote and was elected to the presidency.
His victory would be short-lived: in September 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed in a military coup led by General Raoul Cedras and exiled from the country. Subsequently, the United States and the United Nations implemented a trade embargo on Haiti in protest of the military junta that was now in control of the country. This began a process of negotiations with then US President Bill Clinton and Cedras to reinstate Aristide in his office, but Cedras refused to accept the terms. In a Clinton show of force called “Restore Democracy,” which included 23,000 US troops sent to Haiti, Cedras agreed to allow Aristide to serve the last year of his term in 1994.
Due to a law that presidents could not serve consecutive terms, Aristide could not run for another term. In 1995 he left the priesthood and married Mildren Trouillot. He remained a political and humanitarian activist until 2000, when he was re-elected president amid protests over vote-rigging. In 2004, after a tormented presidency filled with political protests, widespread poverty and pressures of further military coups, Aristide was ousted once again and fled to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues to speak from South Africa about the plight of the Haitian people and his desire to lead them again. He has written several books on the subject, including Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization, In the Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti, Dignity, and Aristide: An Autobiography.
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