Jean-Bertrand Aristide

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Jean-Bertrand Aristide (left) with US President Bill Clinton , 1994

Jean-Bertrand Aristide (born July 15, 1953 in Port-Salut ) was President of the Republic of Haiti several times between 1990 and 2004 .

Parents, childhood and education

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was born on July 15, 1953, the second child of a poor smallholder family in Port-Salut in southern Haiti. His father died a few years later. Then his mother moved with him and his older sister to the capital Port-au-Prince . She made a living for her family by selling agricultural products in the capital's markets. A Salesian from Don Bosco became aware of the above-average intelligent Jean-Bertrand and offered his mother to finance the boy's education. Jean-Bertrand Aristide joined the Salesian Order, completed a school education and then studied theology and psychology in Haiti , Greece , Canada and Israel . He completed his theology studies with a doctorate . In addition to his mother tongues Kreyòl and French , Aristide also has knowledge of Hebrew , Spanish , Greek , English and Zulu . In July 1982, Aristide was elected Catholic priest ordained .

Political career

Even as a student, Aristide sympathized with Catholic liberation theology , which gained in importance in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. He became a member of the liberation theological group Ti Legliz ( Haitian Creole for "small church"). Aristide opposed the Duvalier dictatorship even before 1986. On September 11, 1988, he escaped an assassination attempt by supporters of the displaced dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier , the Tonton Macoute , in his church, which killed thirteen churchgoers. His political agitation and open criticism of the Vatican's Haiti policy led to his expulsion from the Salesian Order in December 1988.

In the election campaign for the 1990 presidential elections, Aristide settled accounts with the supporters of the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. He succeeded as the first politician since the founding of the state in 1804, with the support of the impoverished rural population and the impoverished inhabitants of the slums around the capital Port-au-Prince, a political mass movement, the Fanmi Lavalas ( Haitian-Creole : "blazing flood") to call. In the first democratic elections in Haiti's history on December 16, 1990, he was elected president with an overwhelming majority (67.48 percent of the valid votes cast). In September 1991, however, a forced him coup of the military under General Raoul Cédras to flee into exile to Venezuela and in the United States . After the intervention of the USA in 1994 he was reinstated as president and won a convincing victory in elections as a candidate for the coalition organization Politique Lavalas (OPL). In the same year he also resigned from his priesthood. In the next elections in 1996, in which Aristide was not allowed to run because of the constitutional prohibition of direct re-election, his previous Prime Minister René Préval won 88% of the vote. At the end of 1996 Aristide broke with the OPL and got involved with the Fanmi Lavalas (FL).

Aristide was re-elected in the November 26, 2000 election, and began his second term on February 7, 2001. Right from the start, his term of office was under allegations of election manipulation. Due to mismanagement and corruption, resistance formed in the provinces, which was partly directed by forces of the former dictator Duvalier and death squads associated with him . As violent supporters of Aristides appeared as Chimères people and groups, whose formation or support Aristide always denied.

From November 2002 civil war-like unrest broke out, which intensified in the course of 2003. On 4 April 2003 declared Aristide first time in the history of Haiti's voodoo for officially recognized religion and the voodoo priest (presented houngans , Bocore and Mambos ) civilly Christian priests alike.

Aristide was initially continued to be supported by parts of the poorer sections of the population. The victory of the rebels in many regions and cities, as well as their advance on the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, led to extensive destabilization and a collapse of internal order. International concern about the situation led to intervention by France and the US in February 2004 , with widespread international approval.

On February 29, 2004, Aristide left Haiti on a US plane. According to the USA, he voluntarily abdicated and went into exile, according to Aristides he was forced by the USA to leave his country. In this respect, he spoke of a coup and continued to regard himself as the legitimate president of Haiti.

After two weeks in the Central African Republic , Aristide returned to Jamaica on March 16, 2004 in the Caribbean . The Haitian government found Aristide's presence in the Caribbean provocative and destabilizing.

After the Community of Caribbean States ( Caricom ) officially asked South Africa on May 10, 2004 to allow the deposed head of state to enter the country, the South African government announced on May 13, 2004 that, after consultation with the governments of France and the USA Aristide will take in temporarily.

On May 30, 2004, he left Kingston , the Jamaican capital, with his wife and two daughters in exile in South Africa. There he was greeted by President Thabo Mbeki on May 31st . According to his own statements, he only wanted to stay in South Africa temporarily until the situation in Haiti had calmed down again. He continues to see himself as the country's rightful president. After the severe earthquake in Haiti , Aristide announced in 2010 from his exile in South Africa that he would return to his home country to “help rebuild the country”. He arrived in Port-au-Prince on March 17, 2011, two months after his predecessor Jean-Claude Duvalier, who went back to his home country for the same reason.

It is estimated that Aristide has a personal fortune of $ 40 million.

On March 20, 2017, an Aristide car convoy was shot at in Haiti. He came as a witness to a money laundering trial and was not injured in the attempted assassination, but another person was.

Awards

Works (selection)

  • Dignity . Seuil, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-02-021322-2 (together with Christophe Wargny).
  • Haiti. Un an après le coup d'état . Editions du CIDIHCA, Montreal 1992.
  • Haiti. Plea for a battered country ("Tout homme est un homme"). Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1994, ISBN 3-87294-608-0 .
  • Peace, justice & power: my return to Haiti, the United States, and the new world order . National Press Books, Washington, DC 1995, ISBN 1-8826-0518-7 .
  • Pour un nouveau départ. Proposition d'un Cadre général pour le program du Gouvernement d'ouverture et de concorde nationale . Le Natal, Port au Prince 1993.
  • Shalom 2004 . Bibliothèque nationale, Port-au-Prince 2003.
  • Théologie et politique . Editions du CIDIHCA, Montreal 1992, ISBN 2-920862-69-3 (preface by Leonardo Boff ).
  • The truth! Nothing but the truth! ("La verité! En verité!"). One World Working Group , Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-928538-05-5 .
  • Let me tell my story ("In the parish of the poor"). Edition Exodus, Lucerne 1992, ISBN 3-905575-65-5 (with a foreword by Jean Ziegler ).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marika Lynch: Violent pro-government gangs still prevalent in Haiti's politics. The Miami Herald , published on latinamericanstudies.org, June 5, 2003, accessed September 15, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Papa Nemo: The Way of Voodoo - From the Basics to Practice , Specialized Publishing House for Esoteric Philosophy, Siegburg 2003, ISBN 3-936830-01-0 .
  3. ↑ Der SPIEGEL: Aristide taken out of the country in a US plane
  4. ^ Spiegel Online: Ex-President in exile. Despot Aristide threatens to return to Haiti , January 15, 2010, accessed on January 16, 2010
  5. ^ Spiegel Online: In the House of the Dead of the Caribbean , January 18, 2010, accessed on September 5, 2010
  6. ^ Convoy shot at by Haiti's ex-President Aristide orf.at, March 21, 2017, accessed March 21, 2017.
predecessor Office successor
Ertha Pascal-Trouillot President of Haiti
February 7th – May 30th September 1991 		Raoul Cédras
Marc Bazin President of Haiti
June 15, 1993–12. May 1994 		Émile Jonassaint
Émile Jonassaint President of Haiti
October 12, 1994–7. February 1996 		René Préval
René Préval President of Haiti
February 7, 2001–29. February 2004 		Boniface Alexandre
personal data
SURNAME Aristide, Jean-Bertrand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Haitian politician, President of Haiti
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Port-Salut , Haiti