(Photo Source:Yahoo News)
Exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — the slum priest turned president who clamored a U.S. intervention to restore him to power in 1994, and who accuses Washington of kidnapping him into exile a decade later as the country descended into political chaos. The need for Aristide’s return was deafening during last week’s unrest over skyrocketing food prices that left at least seven people dead, hundreds injured and Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis out of a job. Some protesters vowed to press on until they unseat President Rene Preval, a former Aristide ally. Experts say it is unlikely that Aristide engineered the protests from exile in South Africa. But people living in Port-au-Prince slums say workers for a prominent Aristide loyalist went door-to-door drumming up support for the peaceful protests, some of which spiraled into violence as criminal gangs seized the opportunity to loot stores.