Blackwell Reference Online

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Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the leader of the Haitian Rebellion of 1980–90 , which culminated in the deposition of the US-imposed dictatorship of François and Jean-Paul Duvalier. As a young Catholic priest in the 1980s, Aristide used his pulpit to rally the destitute peasantry for economic justice and democracy. He was instrumental in organizing the Haitian peasantry to engage in mass resistance against the military-dominated government through advocacy of economic equality and democratic rights for all citizens of Haiti. Following the overthrow of the Duvalier regime, Aristide decisively won a popular election as the first democratic president of Haiti since independence in 1804. Aristide was born on July 15, 1953 in Port-Salut, Haiti, but grew up in Port-au-Prince, under the care of priests of the Salesian order of the Roman Catholic Church. Accordingly he was educated in Salesian parochial schools. He then studied at the University of Haiti and left Port-au-Prince for advanced biblical studies in Israel, Egypt, Canada, and Britain. He was ordained in the Salesian order in 1982 but in 1988 was expelled for preaching radical ideas and criticizing Haiti's lack of democracy. He was accused of inciting the poor against the state by increasing their awareness of their oppression. In the early 1980s Haiti was dominated by the Duvalier dynasty. The US-backed army installed François “Papa ... log in or subscribe to read full text