54 Facts About Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide became a focal point for the pro-democracy movement first under Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and then under the military transition regime which followed.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was briefly president of Haiti, until a September 1991 military coup.

The coup regime collapsed in 1994 under US pressure and threat of force, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was president again from 1994 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2004.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in the 2004 coup d'etat after right-wing ex-army paramilitary units invaded the country from across the Dominican border.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was later forced into exile in the Central African Republic and South Africa.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide finally returned to Haiti in 2011 after seven years in exile.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was born into poverty in Port-Salut, Sud on 15 July 1953.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide's father died three months after Aristide was born, and he later moved to Port-au-Prince with his mother.

At age five, Jean-Bertrand Aristide started school with priests of the Salesian order.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was educated at the College Notre-Dame in Cap-Haitien, graduating with honors in 1974.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide 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.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti in 1982 for his ordination as a Salesian priest, and was appointed curate of a small parish in Port-au-Prince.

An exponent of liberation theology, Jean-Bertrand Aristide denounced Duvalier's regime in one of his earliest sermons.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide became a leading figure in the Ti Legliz movement, whose name means "little church" in Kreyol.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide founded an orphanage for urban street children in 1986 called Lafanmi Selavi [Family is Life].

The most widely publicized attempt, the St Jean Bosco massacre, occurred on 11 September 1988, when over one hundred armed Tontons Macoute wearing red armbands forced their way into St Jean Bosco as Jean-Bertrand Aristide began Sunday Mass.

Subsequently, Salesian officials ordered Jean-Bertrand Aristide to leave Haiti, but tens of thousands of Haitians protested, blocking his access to the airport.

In December 1988, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was expelled from his Salesian order.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide married Mildred Trouillot, on 20 January 1996, with whom he had two daughters.

The coup d'etat overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide occurred on the 200-year anniversary of Bois Caiman, a Vodou ceremony during which Haitians planned the Haitian Revolution of 1791, which the Jean-Bertrand Aristide government had commemorated at the National Palace.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide sought to bring the military under civilian control, retiring the commander in chief of the army Herard Abraham, initiated investigations of human rights violations, and brought to trial several Tontons Macoute who had not fled the country.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide banned the emigration of many well known Haitians until their bank accounts had been examined.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed on 29 September 1991, and after several days sent into exile, his life only saved by the intervention of US, French and Venezuelan diplomats.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide spent his exile first in Venezuela and then in the United States, working to develop international support.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide received the 1996 UNESCO Prize for human rights education.

In late 1996, Jean-Bertrand Aristide broke from the OPL over what he called its "distance from the people" and created a new political party, the Fanmi Lavalas.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide then was elected later that year in the 2000 presidential election, an election boycotted by most opposition political parties, now organised into the Convergence Democratique.

Under disputed circumstances, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was flown out of the country by the US with assistance from Canada and France on 28 February 2004.

Mrs Jean-Bertrand Aristide stated that the personnel who escorted him wore US Special Forces uniforms, but changed into civilian clothes upon boarding the aircraft that was used to remove them from Haiti.

The Jean-Bertrand Aristide family remained on the island for several months until the Jamaican government gained acceptance by the Republic of South Africa for the family to relocate there.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide later claimed that France and the US had a role in what he termed "a kidnapping" that took him from Haiti to South Africa via the Central African Republic.

Some observers suggest the rebellion and removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide were covertly orchestrated by these two countries and Canada.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide said that Aristide had requested a US rescue and that the decision to "dispatch a plane to carry him to safety" had been agreed upon following night-time discussions at the behest of Aristide.

In South Africa, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became an honorary research fellow at the University of South Africa, learned Zulu, and, on 25 April 2007, received a doctorate in African languages.

On 21 December 2007, a speech by Jean-Bertrand Aristide marking the new year and Haiti's Independence Day was broadcast, the fourth such speech since his exile; in the speech he criticized the 2006 presidential election in which Preval was elected, describing it as a "selection", in which "the knife of treason was planted" in the back of the Haitian people.

At a meeting with US State Department officials on 2 August 2006, former Guatemalan diplomat Edmond Mulet, then chief of MINUSTAH, "urged US legal action against Jean-Bertrand Aristide to prevent the former president from gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti".

At Mulet's request, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki "to ensure that Jean-Bertrand Aristide remained in South Africa".

On 12 January 2010, Jean-Bertrand Aristide sent his condolences to victims of the earthquake in Haiti just a few hours after it occurred, and stated that he wished to return to help rebuild the country.

On 7 November 2010, in an exclusive interview with independent reporter Nicolas Rossier in Eurasia Review and the Huffington Post, Jean-Bertrand Aristide declared that the 2010 elections were not inclusive of his party, Fanmi Lavalas, and therefore not fair and free.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide confirmed his wishes to go back to Haiti but stated that he was not allowed to travel out of South Africa.

In February 2011, Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced "I will return to Haiti" within days of the ruling Haitian government removing impediments to him receiving his Haitian passport.

On 17 March 2011, Jean-Bertrand Aristide departed for Haiti from his exile in South Africa.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party was barred from participating in the election, and the US feared his return could be "destabilizing".

However, on 12 September 2014, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ordered under house arrest by Judge Lamarre Belzaire while under a corruption investigation.

The government under Jean-Bertrand Aristide launched the first trial of paramilitary death squads and successfully jailed many after aired on Haitian public television trials of FAdH and FRAPH members involved in massacres of civilians.

The release of many documents through WikiLeaks has provided a great deal of insight into how the international community has regarded Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his lasting influence, the coup, and his exile.

November 2004 Dominican president Leonel Fernandez gave a speech in front of other regional leaders in which he said Jean-Bertrand Aristide commanded "great popular support" within Haiti and called for his inclusion in the country's democratic future.

Subsequent to that, he remarked that he was concerned that Jean-Bertrand Aristide would accept the Chavez offer but deflected any discussion of whether Preval himself was prepared to raise the matter with Chavez.

BBC correspondents say that Jean-Bertrand Aristide is seen as a champion of the poor, and remains popular with many in Haiti.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues to be among the most important political figures in the country, and is considered by many to be the only really popular, democratically elected leader Haiti has ever had.

Companies that allegedly made deals with Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government included IDT, Fusion Telecommunications, and Skytel; critics claim the first two companies had political links to Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In 2000, Jean-Bertrand Aristide published The Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization, which accused the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund of working on behalf of the world's wealthiest nations rather than in the interest of genuine international development.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide called for "a culture of global solidarity" to eliminate poverty as an alternative to the globalization represented by neocolonialism and neoliberalism.