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2004-02-29

2004-02-29: (Aristide Resigns and Flees Into Exile for the Second Time, Claiming He Was Kidnapped by American Officials, the Democratically Elected President…

Haitian

2004-02-29: (Aristide Resigns and Flees Into Exile for the Second Time, Claiming He Was Kidnapped by American Officials, the Democratically Elected President Removed by a Combination of Armed Rebels, International Pressure, and His Own Failures): On February 29, 2004, Aristide resigned and fled into exile, claiming that U.S. Ambassador James B. Foley had forced him to resign and that American officials had effectively kidnapped him. The fall came swiftly: on February 5, the FLRN, a militant anti-Aristide movement, took control of Gonaïves, the city where Haitian independence had been declared two hundred years earlier. By February 22, the rebels had taken Cap-Haïtien. By the end of February, they were on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre assumed the role of interim president. U.S., French, and Canadian troops were invited to restore order. In March, the UN authorized MINUSTAH, an international peacekeeping force led by Brazilian troops that would remain in Haiti for thirteen years. Aristide and his family established a life in exile in Pretoria, South Africa. The man the poor had elected twice had been removed twice, and the question of whether his departure was a democratic correction or an imperial intervention remained, like most questions in Haitian history, unresolved.