People’s hero was Haiti’s first democratically elected president

Once hailed as a champion of democracy in a Caribbean country scarred by decades of dictatorships, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced to resign by an armed revolt and international pressure yesterday.

Mr Aristide, 50, whose role in a popular uprising that ended decades of dictatorship in the 1980s made him a hero of Haitian democracy, left the nation of eight million people 24 days after the start of a rebel uprising.

The United States, France and other nations have pressured him to quit and end the revolt, in which nearly 70 people have been killed.