19497: radtimes: U.S. official says Aristide heading to Africa (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

U.S. official says Aristide heading to Africa

http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/02/29/rtr1280471.html

Reuters, 02.29.04

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. State Department official said Sunday an
African country, which he declined to name, had agreed to give asylum to
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The official said South Africa, the continent's diplomatic heavyweight, had
been helping to find a destination for Aristide, who fled his chaotic
Caribbean country earlier Sunday in the face of a bloody armed revolt.

NBC television news reported Sunday evening that Aristide may end up in the
Central African Republic.

The State Department official said he could "neither confirm nor deny it."

Aristide initially traveled to the Dominican Republic and then to the
eastern Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda Sunday after resigning as
president of Haiti, the Haitian consul in Santo Domingo said.

The consul told Reuters Aristide had left the Dominican Republic, which
shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and gone to Antigua
so his aircraft could refuel, and was then planning to travel to Morocco.

But Morocco said it would not grant Aristide asylum.

Panama offered temporary refuge of up to two weeks to Aristide after
Secretary of State Colin Powell asked it to take him until he was given
asylum in another country.

It was not clear whether Aristide had accepted Panama's offer, or if he was
even aware of it.

Aristide said he resigned to avert "a bloodbath" and President Bush ordered
the immediate deployment of U.S. Marines to serve as the vanguard of an
international security force aimed at heading off a power struggle and
restoring stability in Haiti.

.