This Day in History

President Bill Clinton meets with overthrown Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

On this day on March 16, 1993, President Clinton, in a gesture of support, met with overthrown Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the White House in Washington, D.C. Clinton said he was sending a special diplomatic ambassador to Haiti to seek a return to democracy. Clinton appointed Lawrence Pezzullo as special envoy to Haiti. Aristide, Haiti’s first democratic president, served as President from 1994 to 1996 and from September 2001 to 2004. In 2004, Aristide was ousted in a 2004 coup d’etat, in which one of his former soldiers participated. He blamed the United States for orchestrating the coup d'état against him with support from then Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson.