Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Article Outline

Introduction; Priest and Activist; President; Exile from Haiti

Introduction

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, born in 1953, the first democratically elected president of the independent republic of Haiti (1991; 1994-1996; 2001-2004), who was ousted twice by armed rebellions.

Aristide was born in Port-Salut and as a child moved with his mother and an older sister to Port-au-Prince after the death of his father. At the age of five, Aristide was sent to a school run by Roman Catholic priests of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales, whose priests were known for their service to the poor.

Priest and Activist

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While studying at a seminary to become a priest, Aristide was influenced by the tenets of liberation theology, which taught that Christians must work for social and economic justice for all people. For Aristide, liberation theology meant criticizing the repressive dictatorship of Jean Claude Duvalier and protecting the rights of the poor in Haiti.

After completing his seminary training in 1979, Aristide’s superiors sent him out of the country in an effort to curb his political activism. He went first to Israel, where he studied biblical theology, and then to London and to Montréal, Canada, where he completed a master’s degree in theology. Aristide returned to Haiti briefly in 1982 to be ordained as a Salesian priest.

President

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First Election

In December 1990, in the first free elections in Haiti since Haiti was declared a republic in 1804, Aristide was elected president with 67 percent of the vote. He assumed office in February 1991. In September, Aristide’s government was overthrown in a military coup led by Lieutenant General Raoul Cédras, and Aristide went into a three-year exile in the United States. Negotiations to return Aristide to power proceeded slowly, despite sanctions imposed on Haiti first by the Organization of American States (OAS) and later by the United Nations (UN). Aristide returned to Haiti as president only after the threat of a U.S. invasion induced the Cédras regime to agree to turn over power to President Aristide. In September 1994 a force of 20,000 U.S. troops arrived in Haiti to oversee the political transition and worked to maintain order throughout the country. In October, Aristide reassumed the presidency. In keeping with Roman Catholic regulations that priests not hold public office, Aristide submitted his request to leave the priesthood in November of that year.

Upon his return to power, Aristide confronted many problems, including a health crisis, high illiteracy, a depressed economy, high unemployment, a large and corrupt bureaucracy, and gangsterism within the army. While he initially enjoyed the political goodwill and economic support of the United States, disagreements over economic issues and American suspicions that Aristide might not step down at the end of his term in February 1996—as required by the constitution—strained U.S.-Haitian relations.

In October 1995 Haiti’s prime minister, Smarck Michel, resigned after repeated clashes with Aristide and other government officials over economic reforms backed by the United States, including the privatization of state-owned companies such as electric and telephone utilities, banks, and the country’s main port. The next month the United States suspended $4.5 million in economic aid, citing delays by Aristide’s government in implementing the economic reforms.

In December 1995 Aristide’s close friend and handpicked successor René Préval was elected president of Haiti in a landslide victory. Préval had been Aristide’s prime minister at the time of the 1991 coup. Aristide turned over power to his successor in February 1996. In his last official act as president, he restored Haiti’s diplomatic relations with Cuba, which had been broken in 1961 under pressure from the United States. In January 1996 Aristide married Mildred Trouillet, a U.S.-born Haitian American lawyer.

Second Election