I will continue to believe that we must invest in human beings. We must invest in education and health care. This is what will bring peace. Because p… - Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Days come and go...Today is Oct. 15, 1994, the day the sun of democracy has risen and will never set. Today is the day for justice to open its eyes and never close. Today is the day for security for all of us, morning, noon and night...We too have a dream," said Aristide, after quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "Today, in our beloved Haiti, the dream of democracy has become reality. This restoration of democracy brings reconciliation for all, and respect for every single citizen."

Part of this challenge involves dramatically changing global spending priorities, which are so grotesquely skewed. It is estimated that only 10% of development aid goes towards meeting primary human needs (education, health care, clean water, and sanitation). This amount represents less than what the industrialized world spends on athletic shoes each year. It would take six billion dollars a year, for three years, in addition to what is already spent, to put every child in the world in school. Does this seem like a lot? It represents less than 1% of world military spending.

I didn’t leave Haiti because I wanted to leave Haiti. They forced me to leave Haiti. It was a kidnapping, which they call coup d’etat or [inaudible] …forced resignation for me. It wasn’t a resignation. It was a kidnapping and under the cover of coup d’etat...I did not resign. I exchanged words through conversations, we exchanged notes. I gave a written note before I went to the press at the time. And instead of taking me where they said they were taking me in front of the Haitian press, the foreign press, to talk to the people, to explain what is going on, to call for peace. They used that note as a letter of resignation, and I say, they are lying...We talked with them somehow in a nice, diplomatic way to avoid bloodshed, we played the best we could in a respectful way, in a legal and diplomatic way. Because they that told me that they were going to have bloodshed. Thousands of people were going to be killed, including myself. As I said, it was not for me, because I never cared about me, my life, my security. First of all, I care about the security and lives of other people. I was elected to protect the life of every single citizen. So, that night I did my best to avoid bloodshed and when they took me, putting me in their plane, that was their plan. My strategy was then all I could [do] to avoid bloodshed.