page_title: Jean-Bertrand Aristide
section_title: 1994 return
hierarchical_section_title: Jean-Bertrand Aristide / First presidency (1991–96) / 1994 return
caption_attribution_description: English: President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns triumphantly to the National Palace at Port au Prince, Haiti during Operation Uphold Democracy.
context_page_description: Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a former Haitian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a Roman Catholic parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies to become a priest of the Salesian order. He 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. He won the Haitian general election between 1990 and 1991, with 67% of the vote. As a priest, he taught liberation theology and, as a president, he attempted to normalize Afro-Creole culture, including Vodou religion, in Haiti. President Aristide was briefly president of Haiti, until a September 1991 military coup. The coup regime collapsed in 1994 under U.S. pressure and threat of force. Aristide was then president again from 1994 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2004. However, Aristide was ousted in the 2004 coup d'état after right-wing ex-army paramilitaries invaded the country from across the Dominican border. Aristide and many others have observed the role of the United States in orchestrating the coup against him.
context_section_description: Following massive peaceful public pro-Aristide demonstrations by Haitian expats (estimated over 250,000 people at a demonstration in New York City) urging Bill Clinton to deliver on his election promise to return Aristide to Haiti, U.S. and international pressure (including United Nations Security Council Resolution 940 on 31 July 1994), persuaded the military regime to back down and U.S. troops were deployed in the country by President Bill Clinton. On 15 October 1994, the Clinton administration returned Aristide to Haiti to complete his term in office.
  Aristide received the 1996 Unesco prize for human rights education.
caption: President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns triumphantly to the National Palace at Port-au-Prince, Haiti
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