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The rebels could never have gone so far, so fast, if Aristide hadn't squandered his own popular support. He won the presidency in a landslide in late 1990, but the Haitian Army overthrew him a few months later. When the U.S. military restored him to power in 1994, he began ruling like a dictator. Constitutionally barred from running for re-election, he hand-picked his successor and remained the power behind the throne. Street gangs—the chimeres—silenced anyone who dared criticize him. Despite his supporters' vehement denials, his radical reputation lent plausibility to reports that he had publicly praised "necklacing," the grisly form of execution using a gasoline-soaked tire. In 2000 he allegedly rigged parliamentary elections, prompting the opposition to boycott the presidential race that returned him to office later that year.

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"his radical reputation lent plausibility to reports that he had publicly praised 'neclacing,'"

Well, did he or didn't he? If he did it publicly, it is a matter of public record. Find out.

Nicholas Barry-Shaw's "The Crucifixion of Haiti" from Znet:

Aristide's behaviour upon his return to power:

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When the flood of Florida-bound refugees escaping from Haiti finally forced Clinton to act, Aristide was restored to power by U.S. Marines in October 1994; His return, however, exacted a heavy price in terms of justice and democracy: amnesty for the military; “broadening” of the government to include opposition members who had supported the coup; implementation of “structural adjustment”, the economic plan favoured by opponent Marc Bazin; and an end to Aristide’s five year term in 1995, effectively treating his three years in exile as time spent in office.

Yet Aristide proved himself to be no political pushover: “[I]n September 1995 Aristide dismissed his prime minister for preparing to sell the state-owned flour and cement mills without insisting on any of the progressive terms the imf had promised to honour”(8) and before the end of his truncated term, Aristide disbanded the murderous army. This was probably the greatest contribution Aristide ever made to the cause of democracy in Haiti. After Rene Préval took over the presidency in 1996, Aristide split with those in Organization Politique Lavalas (OPL) comfortable with implementing the neoliberal policy package (i.e. the “sweatshop model of development”: liberalization of trade, deregulation of the private sector and privatization of state-owned enterprises) and formed Fanmi Lavalas (FL). From this vantage point, Aristide was free to criticize the reforms forced upon him, while his opponents carried them out, putting him on solid political footing for the upcoming elections.(9)

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On the "rigged" elections:

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Faced with a massive defeat in the May elections and the imminent prospect of another loss in the upcoming presidential election, the opposition and their imperialist allies did the only thing they could: they cried foul. The propaganda effort to discredit the elections and, by extension, FL began with the OAS (commonly regarded as a tool of U.S. foreign policy in the Americas) reversing its earlier assessment of the elections on the basis of a technicality, claiming that the counting method used for 8 Senate seats by the CEP (Coalition d’Election Provisional) was “flawed”. The Constitution of Haiti stipulates that the winner must get 50% plus one vote at the polls; the CEP determined this by calculating the percentages from the votes for the top four candidates, while the OAS contended that the count should include all candidates.(11) These concerns about the validity of the elections were disingenuous on many fronts: Firstly, the OAS had been working with the CEP to prepare the elections since 1999, and thus was fully aware of what counting method was going to be used beforehand, yet failed to voice any concerns at the time. Secondly, using the OAS’s method would hardly have changed the outcome of the elections. Taking an example given by James Morrell, an anti-Aristide policy hack, in the North-East department where two Senate seats were being contested, gives an idea of just how “flawed” the elections were. In this riding, to get the 50% plus one vote demanded by the OAS, 33,154 votes were needed, while the two FL candidates had won with 32,969 and 30,736 votes respectively, with their closest rival getting about 16,000 votes. Thus, were this election to have gone to a second round as called for by the OAS, the two FL candidates would have needed 185 and 2,418 votes respectively, while their opponent would have needed some 17,000 votes.(12) Finally, the results of the disputed legislative elections were consistent with the returns obtained for the mayoral elections and Chamber of Deputies, about which the OAS raised no objections.

After Aristide was inaugurated, he persuaded 7 of the 8 Senators to resign and offered to hold new elections for the disputed seats, but the CD refused, knowing full well that they would lose new elections just as they had the previous ones. In each subsequent negotiation, Aristide and FL would offer more and more concessions to the CD, and each time, the CD would reject them. The opposition’s intransigent stance was steadfastly supported by the U.S., which funded the CD, as well as various other anti-Aristide organizations, through USAID and the NED (National Endowment for Democracy).

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His ties to armed gangs:

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While Aristide’s opponents revived and embellished many timeworn accusations about his authoritarian tendencies, his extreme corruption, his involvement in “narco-trafficking” and so on that were uncritically reported as fact by the mainstream press, perhaps the most serious claim made was that Lavalas had provided arms to gangs and used these “Chimères” to attacks its opponents and quell dissent. Now, like most good lies, there was a kernel of truth to these accusations: Supporters of Aristide had used violence against opposition demonstrations and some were members of criminal gangs. Robert Fatton, a bitter critic of Aristide and his supposed authoritarian tendencies, gives an interesting interpretation the gangs’ motivations: "Lavalas's Chimères and followers are threatening the opposition because they believe that it is purposefully exacerbating the crisis to generate a chaos that would nurture the return of the military. They fear that CD's ultimate objective is to overthrow Aristide, and they are committed to using violence to prevent such an outcome.”(20) In light of recent events in Haiti, their fears seem to have been well founded. As for Aristide’s alleged support for the Chimères, not a shred of evidence has ever been produced. Indeed, Haiti’s current interim Ministry of Justice has settled for working with the U.S. Justice Department to find proof that Aristide siphoned money from the state coffers into offshore personal bank accounts, apparently abandoning efforts to link the deposed President to the violence that occurred under his rule.

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From Znet.