Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the first democratically elected president of Haiti back '90 and was then overthrown by the military in '91. The military carried out mass murders of Aristide supporters until we went down there in '94, kicked them out of power, and reinstalled Aristide.

The reason people have been pissed off at him is because it is widely believed that he rigged the last election in 2000. Various international aid organizations then cut off funding as a result.

The people leading the rebels are in fact former military officers who overthrew Aristide the last time around. I'm not so sure I believe their talk of a democratically elected government given result the last time they overthrew him. However for the time being the head of the Haitian supreme court is now in charge of the country because that is how the line of succession goes if the president steps down. It'll be interesting to see if the rebels will let this guy run the place or if they want to get rid of him too.

As for Aristide possibly being kidnapped, that troubles me. I think it's two sides putting very different spins on the same events. The Bushie war hawks are saying they "took steps to protect Mr. Aristide and his family so they would not be harmed as they departed Haiti," one of Aristide's contacts here in the US said the marines told him "had to go now — that if he didn't go he would be killed and a lot of Haitians would be killed." Aristide has said that he was kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to leave. By making a composite of these accounts, it would seem that Aristide was indeed encouraged to leave the country by our military however I don't know if kidnapping is in fact the right term.