19947: (Chamberlain) Aristide again says he was kidnapped from Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Patricia Zengerle

     MIAMI, March 6 (Reuters) - Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
says his departure from his country was a "kidnapping" as heavily armed
"white men" surrounded the National Palace, according to a statement
released on Saturday.
     "During the night of the 28th of February 2004, there was a coup
d'etat. One could say that it was a geopolitical kidnapping. I can clearly
say that it was terrorism disguised as diplomacy," Aristide said in the
statement, a transcript of a Friday radio address "to the Haitian People
and the World" delivered by cellular telephone to a California radio
station.
     The United States has repeatedly dismissed Aristide's contentions that
he was kidnapped when he left Haiti on Feb. 29. The Bush administration
blames the crisis in Haiti on Aristide, who was restored to power a decade
earlier by 20,000 U.S. troops after his ouster in a military coup.
     A former slum priest, Aristide lost public support during his
presidency amid charges of corruption, failure to alleviate Haiti's
desperate poverty and election fraud.
     But he remains fiercely popular in Haiti's slums, from which tens of
thousands of supporters emerged on Friday to call for his return to Haiti
and denounce the United States.
     Aristide  said U.S. military personnel in Port-au-Prince came to the
palace before dawn on Sunday and told him "the foreigners" and armed gangs
leading a month-long revolt were near the capital and "already in position
to open fire."
     He said the Americans also said his security detail would have to
fight to the death and that 25 more guards hired from the United States had
been barred from coming to Haiti.
     "There was going to be a bloodbath because we were already under an
illegal foreign occupation which was ready to drop bodies on the ground, to
spill blood, and then kidnap me dead or alive," he said.
     Aristide said in the statement that he agreed to go to avoid a
bloodbath, was forced to sign his letter of resignation and did not know he
was going to the Central African Republic until shortly before landing
there.
     He urged his supporters to stand together under the Haitian
constitution. "... we also know that back home there are people who
understand the game, but will not give up because if they give up, instead
of finding peace, we will find death."
     Authorities in the Central African Republic, where Aristide is in
exile, have voiced concern about Aristide's inflammatory comments about the
United States since arriving in its capital Bangui.