Tue, Mar 02, 2004 page7

• Haiti's Aristide: priest, hero, pariah

  • AFP
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  From firebrand priest to national hero to international pariah, Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide has ridden a political roller coaster as turbulent as the fortunes of his impoverished people.

  Aristide ended his tumultuous presidency Sunday, quitting the country amid a bloody, three-week rebellion and pressure from countries around the world, including the US, which had put him back in power a decade ago.

  His flight to the Central African Republic was typically abrupt, unexpected and a reversal of course after his steadfast refusal to relinquish the helm of the Western hemisphere's poorest country.

  Saturday, the 50-year-old Aristide had said in a televised address that his resignation was "out of the question."

  Only nine days earlier he had said he was "ready to die if that is what I must do to defend my country."

  Aristide, whose slight frame and bookish, bespectacled looks belied an autocratic will, went out with none of the fire he showed as champion of the masses that first swept him to the presidency in 1990.

  His flight came after mounting disaffection over his increasingly totalitarian methods, cronyism, corruption and failure to make a dent in the calamitous economic problems facing Haiti's eight million people.

  Aristide, who has dominated political life here for most of the last 14 years while in and out of power, had been under attack since the 2000 elections.

  Those elections returned him to the presidency, but were widely denounced as rigged.

  Particularly alarming was the rise of young, pro-government militias which terrorized the population after Aristide disbanded the Caribbean state's army in 1995, leaving only a 4,000-strong police force.

  With Haiti commemorating the 200th anniversary of its independence from France this year, French President Jacques Chirac last week said that Aristide's rule was "disastrous."

  Even the US, which mustered troops to face down a military junta and bring Aristide back from exile in 1994, decided it was time to pull the plug as Haiti sunk into anarchy.

  "This long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's making," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a written statement Saturday after months of unrest in Haiti that left dozens dead.

  "His failure to adhere to democratic principles has contributed to the deep polarization and violent unrest that we are witnessing in Haiti today," the statement said.

  His own actions have called into question his fitness to continue to govern Haiti," the statement said.

  Aristide's fall from grace was the latest tale of woe to befall Haiti, which had been struggling to overcome its blood-tainted past as the land of "Papa" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the father-and-son dictators who ruled for decades.

  Born July 15, 1953, Aristide made his name as a committed young priest, pushing "liberation theology" and fighting "Baby Doc."

  Aristide was ordained in 1983 and became curate of St Joseph's Church in a poor parish on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

  He later moved to La Saline, one of the largest Port-au-Prince slums.

  His ability to communicate in Creole and his espousal of "human dignity" seized the imagination of a country where 85 percent of the population live in a state of abject poverty.

  Aristide's sermons were broadcast on church radio.

  But his entry into politics brought unwelcome attention and he escaped several assassination attempts by representatives of Duvalier's Tonton Macoutes secret police.

  He was excluded from the Roman Catholic church by his Salesian order in 1988, after he was accused of "inciting hatred, violence and the exaltation of the class struggle."

  Two years later, with the support of the Catholic masses and the poor of the shanties and the countryside, Aristide was overwhelmingly elected president on a strongly populist, nationalist platform.

  However, eight months after taking office, Aristide was overthrown on Sept. 30, 1991, in a bloody military coup led by army chief General Raoul Cedras.

  Exiled first in Venezuela and then in Washington, Aristide galvanized Haitians abroad to put pressure on the US government, which finally sent a force of 20,000 to Haiti in 1994 to bring him back to power.

  Aristide remained true to his radical roots, and before ending his term in 1996 -- to the anger of the US -- he recognized Cuba.

  Once out of his vows to the Vatican, also in 1996, Aristide married Mildred Trouillot, a Haitian-American lawyer.

  The couple has two children, both girls.

  Out of office, Aristide remained the dominant force in Haitian politics, keeping a close watch on his protege Rene Preval, president from 1996 to 2001, before taking over again himself.

  The opposition accused Aristide and his entourage of involvement in political assassinations, illegal enrichment and even links to drug trafficking.

  Aristide denied the allegations as slander.
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