The Crowd Rejoices, ‘We’ve Been Delivered’ : Haiti: Euphoria is the order of the day, as Aristide followers see his return as a resurrection.

His face plastered against the green metal fence that surrounds the Presidential Palace, Colbert Dejeus strained to get a better view of the man he fully regards as the Savior.

The U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter hovered momentarily above the white-domed palace, then landed on the lawn and deposited Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the distance. White doves and blue and red balloons filled the sunny sky as tens of thousands of Haitians screamed in joyous wonder.

“I am so happy I could cry,” Dejeus said. “We are delivered from evil. Now we are free! We have been delivered!”

“Our Father has returned!” cried Esaie Joseph, 23.

Saturday was a day Haitians had long awaited and a day few thought would ever really come. For Haiti’s poor and hopeless masses and for many victims of the past three years of murderous military intimidation, Aristide has come to represent something larger than life. Despite the fear and dread he inspires among the elite, Aristide, a suspended priest, inspires a nearly biblical admiration among the desperate who invest in him their endless expectations.

“Oh, what a beautiful day,” Aristide said from a heavily guarded podium flanked by several hundred Haitian and foreign dignitaries. “Today . . . we are celebrating a day of deliverance, deliverance without vengeance. For three years we have waited. . . . Isn’t this return bringing new reconciliation? Isn’t it bringing new hope? Hope helps you to live.”

Patrick Fleursint, unemployed and crippled, rolled his wheelchair nearly three miles from his ramshackle home to the Champs de Mars park area in front of the palace, where he spent Friday night sleeping on the grass and awaiting Aristide.

“I see the way the country is starting to change, and I want that to continue,” said Fleursint, who was not sure of his age but appeared to be in his mid-20s. “The country will change so that everybody can find work and food. There should be peace. Aristide will bring peace.”

In the capital and in towns all over Haiti, people were celebrating as the U.S. military kept careful watch. Haitians were encouraged to remain in their neighborhoods rather than flood downtown Port-au-Prince for Aristide’s arrival.

In revelry that started Friday, lasted all day Saturday and well into the early morning hours today, Haitians paraded, sang and danced through streets festooned with streamers and thousands of pictures of the slight, bespectacled president.

“Welcome, TiTid,” proclaimed signs written in Creole and using Aristide’s nickname. Light poles and trees were painted in the national colors of red and blue--colors that were restored after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986.

In Cite Soleil, the sprawling slum on the edge of the capital which suffered the brunt of military repression, residents erected shrines in honor of Aristide. They emptied their homes of pots and pans and velvet paintings and placed them as humble offerings to the man who would bring jobs, food and peace.

“I don’t know who he is anymore,” resident Serge Damas said in reverent tones. “He is more than just a president. He is more than a mere human.”

“He is God’s son, without question!” chimed in Denise Vendretti. “God sent him away on a divine mission. Now he has returned to make our nation whole.”

Back at the palace, ordinary Haitians watched Aristide’s arrival from a distance of about 100 yards and then could barely see him from behind the three-sided bulletproof glass where he sat and then spoke.

The president’s safety was a primary concern for the U.S. military that occupied this country last month and helped eject the leaders of Haiti’s dictatorship. The helicopter arrival on the palace lawn was deemed safer than a motorcade. He was surrounded by security agents from the moment he stepped from the chopper to the lawn, and 20 guards stood around him as he delivered a lyrical speech in four languages--Creole, French, English and Spanish. Guards were placed on the stairs to block any effort to rush the podium.

“We would have liked to see him closer, but there will be time,” said Jean Chavanes, 21, one of scores of people who pressed against the palace gates.

“Before, we were sleeping with our eyes open, and now we can close our eyes,” said Eduis Bathold, 29, standing behind U.S. Army barbed wire. “Before, we were starved. And now we feel fed.”

Outside the gates, celebrants surged through the streets and past the army headquarters from which military strongman Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras ruled until Monday. They waved tree branches and hoisted live roosters in the air, both symbols of Lavalas, the grass-roots movement that took Aristide to power in 1990.

“Today is the day when the sun of democracy has risen and will never set,” Aristide said. “Today, the eyes of justice are open and will never close. Today, security will be set morning, noon and night.”

In one of the many incongruous sights that have become common in occupied Haiti, the Haitian army band pushed through the crowd, escorted by U.S. Army 10th Mountain Rangers and playing American military marches.

Nine Haitian policemen, all clad in blue uniforms and two wearing military helmets, marched periodically before the crowd but within the safe confines of the palace fence. Each time, the crowds hissed, booed and taunted the men.

“I entered the armed forces just to help my parents and family and to defend the country,” said Paul Frisnel Bonnet, one of the policemen and a lonely man on Saturday. “I have two children, and my wife is pregnant. If I leave the police, I do not know what I would do. Haiti needs change. Prices are very high. Maybe (Aristide’s) return will improve things.”

To keep the crowds under control, the American military’s psychological operations section was working overtime. Armored vehicles with loudspeakers passed through the crowd regularly, broadcasting Creole messages in soothing tones. “Democracy without violence.” “The president is returning.”

The Haitians who filled the streets Saturday spoke of an almost impossible hope that their returned president would stop the violence in a country where thousands have been killed in the past three years, and he would give jobs to a country where more than 85% of the population is unemployed. He would make life easier and better in the poorest, sickest country in the Western Hemisphere.

“The bad guys came to our houses and killed our parents and raped our people,” said Dejeus. “We have been suffering so much. Now we have started to be free.”

“I had goose bumps all over my body seeing Aristide in the national palace,” said George Wilbert, 22, who was partying with thousands of Haitians in the downtown Heroes of Independence Plaza, long after Saturday’s ceremony had concluded. “I was praying for nothing to happen to him, and I was a little bit afraid.”

More than concrete plans or announcements, it was Aristide’s presence that unleashed the euphoria of Saturday.

“Where are you, youth of Haiti?” Aristide called out. “Haitian people, where are you? . . . Where are the valiant men? Where are the strong women?”

“Here!” the crowd responded.

“Here I am, also,” Aristide said. “We are here together. We are walking together. We are changing together.”