After a popular uprising against his regime, Jean Claude Duvalier, self-appointed President for Life, left Haiti on February 7, 1986 after 14 years in power. Henri Namphy, General President, who headed the transition after Duvalier's departure left the country on June 20, 1988 after a military coup. And, Jean Bertrand Aristide left on February 29, 2004 after a popular uprising and an armed rebellion led by his former allies.
Aristide and Duvalier's Ouster
Aristide and Duvalier have extensive human rights violations and track records of corruption. They brutalized the Haitian people and enriched themselves. Duvalier persecuted and killed many political opponents, see: http://www.fordi9.com/Pages/Victlist/ListA.htm . During his regime thousands of political opponents had to flee the country. Freedom of expression and civil liberties were non-existent under his rule. Journalists were persecuted as well and political parties were outlawed under Haiti's one party system. After his departure an administrative commission, led by former Minister of Finance Leslie Delatour, concluded Duvalier had stolen more than US$600 million from Haiti's coffers.
Jean Bertrand Aristide was democratically elected in December 1990. The people of Haiti were hopeful that this humble, poor priest meant a new era for Haiti. But Aristide ruled as a strongman -" not as a man of God. Aristide lost credibility among the Haitian democrats when he recruited some of the FRAPH killers, a paramilitary group responsible for the killing hundreds of Haitians after the 1991 coup d'etat. Aristide used those killers to assassinate a popular catholic priest that stood up against his corruption and violence, Father Ti Jean. When the Secretary General of Haiti Human Rights Platform, Chenet Jean Baptiste, denounced the killing, he had to flee the country to save his life. Aristide recuperated several Duvalierists that were members of the military and the now defunct Tonton Macoutes, a paramilitary group under Duvalier, during his second term in office. The most well known was Sainvoyis Pascal, who Aristide made Speaker of the House in 2001 as the head of the Lavalas caucus in the House of Deputies. Aristide persecuted and killed his political opponents. Journalists, women and youth activists, political parties and human rights activists, peasants and others that opposed his views were beaten, illegally jailed or killed, see: http://www.forumhaiti.com/t678-liste-partielle-des-victimes-et-magouilles-du-lavalas and http://www.prevalhaiti.com/messages.php/24180 . After Aristide resigned in 2004, Haiti's General Accounting Office and an administrative commission led by the current Minister of Justice Paul Denis found that he had stolen more than US$350 million from Haiti's coffers over nine years.
Both Aristide and Duvaliers have maintained with the stolen funds a base of support in-country while residing in exile. But Aristide went a step further and has maintained a network of contacts in the U.S. comprised of his former lobbyists see: http://www.haitipolicy.org/Lobbying7.htm and people who made money with him during his rule via telecommunications and other business dealings. He also has a network of academics and ideologues like Robert Maguire at the US Institute of Peace, Dr. Paul Farmer, a prominent AIDS expert and Deputy UN Special Envoy to Haiti, who actively promoted Aristide's return under the false premise that he was "kidnapped" by the US Government in 2004 rather than having resigned in disgrace and requested evacuation. Aristide's own Prime Minister has denied the kidnapping claim and stated officially and publicly that the kidnapping charge was fabricated for political purposes.
Duvalier and Aristide's Relationship with the Preval Government
Rene Preval and Jean Bertrand Aristide were political twins when they were seeking power in the 1990s. When Aristide became President in 1991 he ditched the coalition (FNCD) that allowed him to win the presidency and a parliamentary majority. He handpicked Rene Preval as his Prime Minister in February 1991, in violation of the Haitian constitution, which requires that the Prime Minister be selected from the party that has the majority in both chamber of parliament.
On August 13, 1991, the FNCD caucus in parliament sought to fire Preval as Prime Minister on the grounds of incompetency. Both men, Aristide and Preval, sent a group of thugs to burn some of the members with a common tactic of their regime "necklacing" burning tires around their necks. Without police intervention many members of the House of Deputies could have died that day, among them the current Haiti's ambassador at the OAS Dully Brutus, former Speaker of the House of Deputies. This act led to a political crisis and later an illegal military coup in September 1991. Both Aristide and Preval went into exile.
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