Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has a long troubled history of régime changes, bloody coups. For the first time it had a democratic elected president: Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That all changed on February 29th 2004 when president Aristide was forced by the US to go in exile and a rebel forces ended up, after three weeks fighting, in front of the presidential palace in the capital Port-au-Prince. Mr. Aristides reign was not a success, economic reforms failed and corruption was widespread. To defend himself against the rebels he armed the chimères, the feared streetgangs in the poor neighborhoods, with guns. The rebel forces which countered him consisted of former Aristide loyalists, known as the Cannibal Army, who were out on revenge after their leader, Amiot Métayer, was killed in September. They had been joined by members of the former Haitian Army, which was dissolved after the US returned Mr.Aristide to power in 1994. Some of the members of the Army are accused of killing thousands of people and were notorious for their brutal methods after the 1991 military coup that removed Mr. Aristide. By backing these rebels and changing a democratic elected president by force and not by democratic ways, the US made a mistake. It shows that American foreign politics didn't change it's old habbits and is as opportunistic as ever.