17633: Lemieux: iol.co.za: Mbeki's Haiti visit backfires (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

January 3, 2004 at 10:11 AM

Mbeki's Haiti visit backfires

By Peter Fabricius

Bullets fired at a South African police helicopter and into
a sports stadium in Haiti forced President Thabo Mbeki to
call off his controversial participation in the key
ceremony marking Haiti's independence celebrations.

South African police said on Friday that the South African
helicopter was fired at on Thursday while it was carrying
South African security officials scouting the port city of
Gonaives to ensure that it was safe before Mbeki visited it
hours later.

Mbeki was supposed to join Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in a re-enactment ceremony to commemorate the
Declaration of Independence from France by Haiti's African
slaves in Gonaives on January 1, 1804, after a 12-year
revolution.

'We got to the soccer stadium well before Mbeki was due'
This launched the first independent African state in
history.

The re-enactment was to be the crux of the independence
celebrations which Mbeki went out of his way to attend.

For that he sent to Haiti the navy supply ship SAS
Drakensberg, the police helicopter and a large continent of
staff.

According to the Democratic Alliance - which on Friday
called the visit a "fiasco" - Mbeki's back-up included 250
naval personnel, 51 police officers and 18 national
intelligence agents.

Mbeki had been warned before that violence would mar the
independence celebrations and Aristide's political
opponents had specifically warned him not to visit
Gonaives, an opposition stronghold.

But South African foreign affairs officials had vowed
before Thursday that Mbeki would attend regardless. He was
due to fly by helicopter to Gonaives at midday on January 1
from the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

However, Mbeki's security advisers decided shortly before
the ceremony to call off Mbeki's visit after bullets began
flying around Gonaives.

They decided the venue was no longer safe for him, his
spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said. Mbeki himself had not been
fired at and was at no time in any danger, he said.

South African police spokesperson Selby Bokaba said shots
were fired at the advance party of Mbeki's officials as
they flew over Gonaives in a helicopter to scout the area.

They did not return fire as had been reported but returned
to Port-au-Prince and advised Mbeki not to attend the
ceremony.

SABC journalist Denzil Taylor, who was in Gonaives shortly
before Mbeki's scheduled arrival, said in a telephone
interview from Haiti on Friday that he believed Mbeki's
visit had been called off because Aristide's opponents had
fired "volleys" of shots into the stadium where the
independence ceremony was due to be held.

Khumalo said the event which Mbeki was supposed to attend
in Gonaives was a soup eating ceremony, a tradition
celebrating the liberation of the slaves.

However, Taylor said he understood the Gonaives event was
the centrepiece of the independence celebrations since it
was a re-enactment of the declaration of independence,
taking place in a stadium on the spot where the declaration
had happened 200 years ago.

"We got to the soccer stadium well before Mbeki was due. At
first just one shot was fired into the platform and the
South African VIP protection guys said they were not ready
to call off Mbeki's visit.

But then a bit later a volley of shots was fired into the
stadium from the buildings around it. Then the two-way
shooting became cowboy-like. We were crawling around on the
ground trying to get out of the way.

"People started running and the SA VIP guys packed up and
said 'we're out of here.' They phoned up Port-au-Prince and
said; 'We're not going to let our man come here.'"

Taylor said his impression was that Mbeki's visit to Haiti
was "a plan that went wrong." He said the ordinary Haitian
people had at first welcomed Mbeki's presence but then
seemed to be changing their minds.

They were saying that SAS Drakensberg was not a supply ship
for Mbeki but a warship sent to protect Aristide from his
political enemies. Taylor said it was difficult for the SA
officials here to counter this impression because
Aristide's people themselves were agreeing that the South
Africans had come to protect him.

"Rumours are also flying around here that South African
soldiers are walking into opposition radio stations and
closing them down. Of course it is not happening but it is
an indication of what people think about the South African
presence here," Taylor said.

Most world figures stayed away out of fear of just the sort
of civil strife that racked Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and
the cities of Gros Morne and Jacmel.



Published on the Web by IOL on 2004-01-03 10:11:55



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